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.

When Purdue added Alabama A&M transfer Marcus Cushnie this week, he became the 11th transfer to join the Boilermakers this off-season.

That number is essentially boiled down to 10 when you take into account the unfortunate circumstance of DB C.J. McWilliams, whose career seems to have been ended by an eye injury. But If you think that 10 Is a hard ceiling, you're not paying attention, because this has been one thing after another for weeks now, months actually.

Ten players. That's one man short — thus far — of a whole unit, and a group that constitutes nearly 12 percent of Purdue's scholarship allotment, all added this off-season, all immediately eligible and all recruited for a reason, an acute reason, actually. They're needed, and that need will make them considerably more important right away than their freshman peers this fall.