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Jeff Eaton shrugs.
Shorts and a T-shirt in the midst of a late-season November practice, outdoors, in Indiana?
When Purdue’s strength coach, trotting down the steps into the team’s performance complex, was presented with the question, that’s all he can muster. A shrug.
The flimsy attire seems to fit the persona, at least.
A burly strength coach can’t be affected by weather. C’mon, man. Weather?
Maybe it’s because Eaton does plenty to keep himself warm.
He rarely is still, whether it’s his jaw moving with all the yapping he does at players or his legs churning from running up and down the sidelines on gamedays or his arms flying up in celebration and then to smack players’ helmets, backs and behinds.
Eaton may not be all right — “He might be insane,” sophomore linebacker Markus Bailey said with a laugh — but he’s definitely right for Purdue’s lively weight room group.
“Coach Eaton, every day, man, his energy is amazing,” senior defensive end Antoine Miles said, shaking his head like he was still trying to grasp it, six months later. “There are days where, as human beings, sometimes your body doesn’t allow you to feel up to the top energy. So Coach Eaton just does a great job of bringing energy and getting guys fired up. So as soon as he walks in, he’s full energy, ready to go. He gets us hyped and gets us pumped up, and then we’re ready to go after that.
“He’s been consistent with his energy each and every day. We love it. At the end of the day, we’re just happy to have someone who can bring us energy when we need it. It shouldn’t be like that — the players alone should be able to create the energy — but he just gives us that much more of a boost. We need somebody like Coach Eaton.”
Director of football strength and conditioning Justin Lovett added Eaton to his staff in June in part because of Eaton’s experience as a defensive lineman — that’s the group he mostly works with — so he could add a “hand combat” element to Purdue’s diverse staff. And, also, because Lovett knew Eaton would provide an energy boost to the room. Lovett tries to create an atmosphere that operates on what he likes to call a “razor’s edge,” in a way, and Eaton had that kind of juice at UNLV. (Purdue denied interview requests to speak with Eaton or Lovett for this story.)
As soon as players were introduced to Eaton, his passion rubbed off. It was hard not to.
Not only was Eaton the “juice” man for those lifts when players maybe didn’t quite feel up to it, he also was the one encouraging them to hit peak performance.
“If somebody is trying to get a max rep, he’s right there screaming,” said quarterback Elijah Sindelar, who doesn’t even work directly with Eaton but feels his presence, “and you better get it or he’s just going to get right in your face. I’d rather not fail in front of him.”
Because of his experience as a player on the line, Eaton has helped that group translate what Lovett’s program features — there was a series specifically for hand combat in the offseason, just like he had MMA-focused and boxing-focused sessions, too — with practical application of playing the position.
Miles said Eaton would give them tips on how to beat offensive linemen with quick hand movements, supplementing the coaching by Purdue’s assistants.
But Eaton isn’t doing much “coaching” on Saturdays, doesn’t seem like.
That’s when he’s pure emotion.
Words certainly come out of his mouth, but some players joked they’re not even entirely sure what Eaton talks about in pregame warmups when he’s just walking about jabbering. During games, he’ll run over to any player — regardless of position — to celebrate a play, to offer encouragement or to, obviously, try to fire a guy up.
He’s been an underrated piece to Purdue’s sideline, players said.
“I just love the juice that he brings. He has so much love for the game," said running back D.J. Knox, who is in Eaton's sphere in the weight room during Thursdays 'gun show' workouts. "So when he’s running down the sideline, jumping over people, when they come out of bounds, and he hops up and he’s celebrating, it’s like, ‘Dang, he’s like this every day.’ It’s not a Saturday thing. It’s not a Sunday, not a Friday. It’s every day of the week. I kind of look at Coach Eaton like, ‘Dude. How do you have the energy?’ But he just has a pure passion for the game.
"Those are the kind of guys we need on this staff. He doesn’t call plays or things like that, but he helps us win, too. Because when things aren’t going our way, he still has that juice. So he still keeps you locked into the game and keeps guys’ head up, ‘We can still make plays.’ In games that we’ve come back late and won or games that were hard to grind out, Coach Eaton has always been there. He’s definitely a key contributor to us winning.”
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