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The Best I Played With: A Purdue player's perspective, Ryan Kerrigan

Player perspective series: Joe Holland | Chris Clopton

"Catching Up" series ($): Akin Ayodele | Bernard Pollard | Matt Light

Draft ticker: No. 1-31

GoldandBlack.com staff is making its decisions about Purdue's best players since 1997 with a 20-year player draft that'll run through July.

In conjunction with the draft, we also will check in with former Boilermakers to get their perspectives on the best players they played with during their careers. They offered up behind-the-scenes looks at intense work ethics, how players got the most out of their teammates and even reflected on funny stories during their days together.

Next up is defensive end Ryan Kerrigan, one of the most accomplished players in Purdue history, as told to Stacy Clardie:

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"The best player during my whole time at Purdue I'd probably have to say was Dustin Keller. The guy was a weight room freak. I saw in the article with Joe Holland, him talking about how strong Keller was and I thought the same thing coming in, 'Am I supposed to be lifting that much weight? This guy is a tight end, he weighs less than me and he's throwing up this much weight?' Just the way he could change a game, the way he could dominate games and practice, I thought he was just awesome. Watching him every day, seeing how hard he worked to be as good as he was, it was really motivating.

"On defense, Kawann Short is definitely up there. The kind of athletic ability he had and has for a guy as big as he is was kind of mind-blowing to see when he came in as a freshman. You saw it slowly come together throughout his time at Purdue to where his fourth and fifth years there, he was dominant at times. Now you see that in the NFL. KK, he was an athletic freak. I remember seeing one time during the winter seeing him do a 360 dunk on a basketball hoop, and you're just like, 'Man, this dude is 325 pounds. He's not supposed to be able to do that.' You'd think gravity would work its hand, but he kind of defies it. Seeing the maturation of KK, both in the meeting rooms and on the field throughout his career is really cool and, I think, a really good thing for coaches to point to for the future because of how KK is doing in the NFL now.

"(Offensive lineman) Dennis Kelly is along the same lines as KK because he came in grayshirt, he was real tall, 6-foot-8 coming in and 230 pounds, real skinny guy. You saw his body change over the years, became a 300-plus-pound O-lineman. The work he put in to become a really good left tackle, probably a lot sooner than most people thought, too, at Purdue. Now, he's going on his fifth or sixth year in the NFL. A guy like KK who was a little raw coming out and just worked at it, stuck with it and now he's having a really good career. You could certainly see it with him. He was 6-8, long arms and played with really good pad level. He definitely was a challenge (to go against). You could see the NFL potential in him during his time at Purdue. It's good to see him realizing that now.

"(Defensive tackle) Mike Neal was another guy, kind of like Dustin. You saw him and you start questioning if you belong because he was such a freak in the weight room. I'd put Mike up there as well."

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