More: Purdue verbal commitments

More ($): Jeff Brohm on in-state recruiting

Sitting with 18 commitments (and counting) before Aug. 1, Purdue coach Jeff Brohm suggested he's been taken aback by the recruiting results he and his staff have found thus far at Purdue.

"It's actually gone better than I'd thought (it would) to this point," Brohm said at Big Ten media day in Chicago on Tuesday. "We've had to slow the process down."

After every other Power 5 conference school in the country — every single one — landed at least one commitment before Purdue got on the board, June was a firestorm for the new Boilermaker staff, as pledges came one on top of the other during a span of three weeks or so.

After a few weeks of relative quiet, probably to some extent at Brohm's choosing given the numbers involved, Purdue hosted nearly a half dozen visits on Saturday and landed three more commitments, bringing the total to 18, with more decisions expected this week, starting Tuesday.

“We want to be very aggressive in recruiting," Brohm said during a Facebook Live session prior to his podium stint in Chicago Tuesday morning. "I think to this point things have gone very well. It’s important that we continue to try to improve the roster and important that our recruits see how we play this year and what we’re about. But without question, these guys are the face of the future and we want to make sure that we get the best players here who want to play Purdue football.”

Purdue has been aggressive, in every sense, aggressive in its evaluations, during the offering process, in getting targets on campus and in many cases, in getting them committed early. Indiana coach Tom Allen mentioned Monday Purdue's vastly different approach to in-state recruiting in particular.

It's led to an unprecedented run of summer commitments by past Purdue standards. While no coach wants quantity over quality in recruiting, Purdue ranking among P5 leaders in commitments as of late July is a surprise, considering its program's recruiting struggles of the immediate past, as well as the fact that all these commitments have come in a short period of time.

It's been a surprise, a pleasant one for Brohm and staff, for which Job 1 was to elevate the program in recruiting.

"There's a lot of things to sell about Purdue football. I do understand that we have a great academic reputation. The university has definitely laid the groundwork to invest in the program," Brohm said in Chicago. "We have the new $65-million practice facility that'll be done at the end of August and that'll be fantastic, a tremendous asset for us. Our recruits and players are looking forward to that.

"We're in a great conference against great competition and it's an opportunity for guys to come in and play early and we have to make sure we sell that, to play against the very best and get a chance to do it early in your career. We can provide that for you at Purdue. I think the combination of those things have worked. Now, do we have to make sure the product we put on the field this year is much better? Yes. That's going to be the No. 1 priority once things get going, so we are able to keep our recruits and continue to improve."

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