Purdue slowly assembling its special teams, behind creative coach
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Jeff Brohm understands the importance of Tony Levine's role as special teams mastermind.
Levine's creativity has produced results at nearly every stop, including last season as Brohm's special teams coordinator at Western Kentucky. So Brohm gives Levine leeway, allowing him to try new things — sometimes things that haven't been done elsewhere — and even will allow Levine, also co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, to skip out on offensive meetings during the season until the special teams game plans are done.
To assemble those plans this season, though, Levine first needs to identify personnel who will fit in each of his units — he coaches all of them. And that's why training camp is so vital: Purdue has had an influx of newcomers who weren't on campus in the spring when Levine first got a taste of the roster. That's meant Levine is adding in more pieces to see just which players will land on his teams.
Step 1 in that process is IDing what Levine considers a core group of players who will be on the majority of the units. He's getting closer and closer to doing that, he said after the team's fourth practice of camp Monday morning.
"I feel like I’ve identified somewhere around 8-10 we’ll have a chance to count on. I’m excited so far with the work they’ve done through four practices," he said. "We’ve had a couple guys that I did identify the last couple days banged up, so a little bit of a setback for the core special teams units and a setback for them personally if they want to get on the field. Last I checked, we had a game in a little over three-and-a-half weeks. We’re not slowing down. In this morning’s practice, we worked four phases of special teams. So if they continue to miss practices, which I get that their health comes first, but they’re going to miss their opportunity to probably contribute early on for us. So as they start to get back, they’ll try to get back in the mix."
Levine didn't mention who those "couple guys" were, but injured receiver Jarrett Burgess' size and speed combination make him a potential weapon as a gunner on the punt team, and injured receiver Malcolm Dotson doubles up on Purdue's track team and also has speed that can be useful on special teams.
Speed is a premium in the kick return game, too, where Levine said he wants guys who play "fast" and "fearless." He thinks he's found some newcomers to go alongside of the top two players there from the spring, running backs D.J. Knox and Tario Fuller.
"I think the addition of Terry Wright and KeyRon (Catlett), who have tremendous experience doing that, they’ve showed me so far that they are fast and they are fearless," Levine said. "Now, they haven’t had yet 20 people in front of them on a kickoff return, but they’ve showed it offensively to me, so that’s a positive."
Redshirt freshman Jackson Anthrop impressed as a consistent, reliable punt returner in the spring, so he's likely in line to be the top guy there. But Catlett and fellow newcomer receiver Isaac Zico also have looked good in camp, Levine said.
Catlett's the only freshman of that group, but it's possible more could work their way onto special teams in Year 1.
But to pull the 'shirt is not a decision Levine or the rest of the coaches take lightly. So Levine will continue to evaluate and make a decision later in camp.
"Right now, I can’t stand here after four practices and identify one (freshman) in particular that I’m saying, ‘This guy is going to play this year.’ I can’t do that yet," Levine said. "I’m continuing to give them repetitions in drills. They’re in all the meetings. I have all the freshmen attend every special teams meeting other than offensive line, defensive line and quarterbacks just maybe (hoping) through osmosis if something happens and they’ve got to be on a unit at some point (they can). But they are getting reps right now.
"In the next week, that’s going to be cut down and I’ll know better if we’re going to play a freshman. We had a personnel meeting late (Sunday) night talking specifically about each individual young man in our program, and we’re not just going to use a true freshman’s year on a punt return team. So it’s got to be significant for specials teams and/or in the two-deep on defense. Haven’t seen that just yet, but I am going to continue to rep them."
In terms of the kickers and punters, Levine said he's been happy with all of those specialists early in camp, including newcomer Spencer Evans and returners J.D. Dellinger and Joe Schopper. Purdue has three kickers in camp with Dellinger, Evans and walk-on Myles Homan.
"All of our specialists have done a nice job. They worked extremely hard over the summer on their own doing really specific snaps, holds, kicks, punts and you can see from the first practice we came out, the improvement they made," Levine said. "They’ve done a tremendous job with (strength) coach (Justin) Lovett and his staff in the weight room. J.D. Dellinger, for example, gained over 10 pounds and you think of him, he’s got the height, if you will, but really needed to gain a little bit of weight going from his true freshman year to his second year and he’s done that. And it’s been muscle.
"So I’m proud of the way they’ve worked, and all of them so far have shown tremendous improvement."
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