The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com's weekly, obviously, column covering Purdue football, basketball and recruiting, as well as college sports issues, the true meaning of life, or whatever other topics might come to mind in a given week.

In the best-case scenario, George Karlaftis and David Bell will spend only a few more months at Purdue.

This week, a 2021 mock draft from Fox Sports projected both Boilermaker juniors as first-round picks a year from now, and while there's a long way to go until that time, that sounds reasonable to me.

It's a tough thing for programs and coaches and fans to lose players early to the pro ranks, but it's also a very positive thing in the big picture because success stories are what it's all about. Every circumstance is different and some decisions made are better than others, but when a player has put himself in a position to make the leap with some security in place, that's a good deal.