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At 270 pounds, Evan Panfil is a considerable heft at defensive end, and he’s tried to use that to his advantage.

Often last season, Panfil would rely on power to bull-rush offensive tackles and get into the backfield. That was, really, his pass rush go-to.

Until Randy Melvin came along.

Melvin wanted Panfil to show more variety, not just barrel down the middle of tackles. Not surprisingly, then, Panfil’s point of emphasis over the last six months or so has been developing more pass rush moves. Especially knowing how desperately Purdue’s defensive front needs to generate pressure on the quarterback.

“I think I’m a big guy and (tried to) use my power, playing against a guy who outweighs me by 40 pounds. So you can only do that for so long, and he usually sets his feet and gets locked down,” Panfil said after Monday’s afternoon practice, the third two-a-day of camp. “Coach Melvin when he came, it’s been a huge emphasis of his. You’ll hear from him if you don’t do it right. So I just have that in the back of my head that he’s watching every play and I better do it right because you don’t want the wrath of him.”

Panfil avoids that, too, by using perhaps his best attribute, his motor, better. At points in his career, Panfil has raced to get to a spot only to be missing an assignment. He’s had fewer MAs this camp than before, he said, and that’s because he’s grasping his role within the defense now better than ever.

Coach Darrell Hazell said he likes that Panfil is more apt to “settle down” now and make a key tackle instead of getting too hyped, trying to deliver a blow and not being able to wrap up.

Panfil’s intent to be a consistent player in his final season, whatever that looks like statistically.

“If you play within the defense, you’ll make your plays,” he said. “For me, it’s just about playing within the defense because if everyone does their job, everyone is right and we make the plays that we’re supposed to make. I just try to simplify it, just make the plays and do what I have to do staying within the defense.”

Hazell said he thinks Panfil is capable of increasing his sack total — Panfil had four last season — because he’s more disciplined, has blossomed under Melvin’s tutelage and has that never-relent tendency.

“I really love where he is right now,” Hazell said. “His motor is good. He’s a little bit more balanced when he gets to where he needs to be, to be able to make those plays.

“He’s got to have a great year for us, and I think he will.”

For the most part, Purdue has stuck with four players along its front four with the first-team defense this camp: Panfil at one end spot, Austin Larkin at the other and Jake Replogle and Eddy Wilson inside.

It's the group that worked alongside each other in the spring for the first time and one that's picking up steam quickly, Hazell and players said.

"Our chemistry is insane," Wilson said. "When I say that, I stress it to the highest point. It’s hard to explain, the way we play off each other — we kind of know where a guy is going before he goes. When I’m running a double stunt with Austin Larkin on the end, I know how many steps he’s going to take to get outside then I’ve got to wrap around. We just read off each other."

Hazell said he took a break from watching film Sunday afternoon to head to Melvin's office, simply to tell Melvin how impressed he's been with the D-line's effort and execution. Hazell said he "loves" that first group.

And, part of that, could be the bond that's building.

"Us four — and nothing is set, camp isn’t over — but the four we’ve been running with, we work well with each other," Panfil said. "As far as running different games or different pressures, we know how each other work and feed off each other. I think that’s really helped us. Everyone is building chemistry."

Hazell mentioned last week he’d like freshman running back Brian Lankford-Johnson to get 10 touches per game.

Lankford-Johnson hadn’t heard that.

Until he was told by a reporter days later, and Lankford-Johnson’s eyes widened.

“Oh, crap,” he said. “Can we not put that in there? I didn’t know that.”

For a first-year player still getting accustomed to the speed of the college game and learning a playbook that dwarfs his high school one, Lankford-Johnson admitted to swimming a bit over his first week-plus of camp. Hearing that the head coach thinks he could have a larger role than Lankford-Johnson expected — at least for the start of the season — was a shock to the system.

Because even though Lankford-Johnson knows his speed separates him in the running back room, he hasn’t been able to actually show that enough so far to do any real separating.

“Everything is so fast. Everything is so detailed. You blink your eyes, you can miss everything so fast. It’s challenging, but I’m getting used to it,” he said last week.

“Once I adapt to the college level speed, I think my speed will separate myself from all the other guys. But since there’s so much other stuff I have to worry about, it’s keeping me right there in the I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing category.”

Lankford-Johnson is a month behind, too, not arriving to campus until July, instead of June, because of academics. That’d have been a valuable month to learn the playbook and go through the motions, so to speak, with his offensive teammates in captains’ practices. Not to mention getting a jump on conditioning and strength in Duane Carlisle’s offseason program.

But Lankford-Johnson wasn’t around, so he’s in even faster catch-up mode now. He said he did add 10 pounds already since July, and he’s seen improvement on the field from Day 1 of camp until now, and that’s been encouraging.

Much more growth is needed, though.

“I think we have to bring him along,” running backs coach DeAndre Smith said. “He’ll be able to do some things Game 1, there’s no question about it, but to expect him to be able to handle everything … It’s going to take some time. That kid is a conscientious kid and he’s working at it.”

A top priority: Learning how to pass protect. Lankford-Johnson said he didn’t have to do it at all in high school, so it’s been a significant learning curve at Purdue. He’s to the point now where he feels like he’s physically able to pick up a blitz but the bigger challenge is knowing where the guy is coming from. He’s making the right read more lately, but he needs to be quicker getting there, he said. Small victories, though, at least getting to the right guy, even if Smith still yells it’s not fast enough.

In terms of being in the right place to get the ball in his hands, he’s still working on that, too. With the offense being primarily no-huddle, he said it’s like learning “sign language,” deciphering all the signals from the sidelines quickly enough to be able to execute an assignment. And Smith is a stickler for not missing assignments.

Still, Lankford-Johnson is in the mix for the backup running back spot entering Week 3 of camp.

“I have a chance, but we have a lot of talented guys in there,” Lankford-Johnson said. “I really don’t know what’s going on right now. Right now, I’m just trying to focus on the offense because if I do win out that spot, what’s having that spot if I don’t know the offense? So I’m really just trying to figure out everything step by step, day by day and hopefully at the end of camp, I did enough, I showed Coach Smith and Coach Hazell enough, to give me that spot. But, right now, I’m just trying to find out my role on this team.

“It’s just the little small things I have to fix in my personal game, just from film study, calling (on) some older guys. But mentally and physically, I’m ready to play at this level and if he gives me 10 snaps a game, hip hip.”

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