Purdue landed a running back recruit for 2017. Antwuan Branch, had offers from Vanderbilt, Yale and Navy. While his offers aren’t big time offers, the 3 star (according to 247 sports) is supposed to be on the rise.

This gives Purdue another back for the future, a position which we have plenty of talent at with Markell Jones, D.J. Knox, Richie Worship, Tario Fuller, Keyante Green and David Yancey all returning in 2017.

As a Junior last year, Branch tore apart the competition. He rushed for 2,595 yards on 313 carries, averaging out to 8.3 yards per carry. He also scored 27 touchdowns last season as well. Purdue is getting an all-around back, who likes to block as well.

Like I previously mentioned, Purdue has a stable of backs already. Branch is a CB/S hybrid in their 4-2-5 defense at his high school in Tennessee. Maybe we could possibly see him on defense for us in the future. I think Coach Hazell & Co. got a talented athlete that we can use on offense or defense. Either way, welcome aboard Antwuan! Boiler Up!

When asked about his offensive philosophy, Texas Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong consistently cites the need to be physical and run the ball successfully. And those are the exact reasons why new coordinator Sterlin Gilbert should take a page out of Jay Norvell’s playbook and use senior quarterback Tyrone Swoopes in the 18 Wheeler package once again in 2016.

The Longhorns didn’t showcase the package in the Orange and White game and when Strong fielded a question about it on Wednesday, he was relatively non-committal.

“You have so much you can do now,” he said. “You still have that package. Those quarterbacks can all do different things. If you want a specialty package for one of them, you can always get that worked out. I think Sterlin is smart enough to do that.”

Ostensibly, there’s still an ongoing quarterback competition, so it’s not out of the question that Swoopes could still win the starting job, at which point those runs would likely become a part of the offense.

But freshman quarterback Shane Buechele is the starter in all but name and should officially win the job during fall camp, even though Strong pointedly mentioned that Jerrod Heard, Swoopes, and Buechele are all “doing a good job” when asked about Buechele’s leadership ability.

So the calculation will then be whether it’s worth letting the 6’4, 254-pounder languish on the sidelines and wait for a potential injury to see the field — last year, Swoopes provided a huge boost to a sputtering offense with his physical running style and a level of enthusiasm that never surfaced when he was a starter.

“You watch him at the end of that game and him running behind his pads and he’s just so strong and so physical,” Strong said last fall after the Kansas State game. “Only thing we needed was a lead blocker, which we had.”

Now-departed fullback Alex De La Torre shined in that package last season and his absence will force another player to step up in that role, so the effectiveness in that area could decrease if someone like junior H-back Andrew Beck can’t improve at acquiring targets and opening up running lanes.

Even with that caveat, the results last season were remarkable and look largely replicable with the return of so many offensive lineman and tight end Caleb Bluiett.

After scoring a touchdown and throwing for a touchdown against Oklahoma, Norvell tweaked the 18 Wheeler package right before Kansas State game and Swoopes responded, scoring three touchdowns and gaining 50 yards on seven carries.

Two weeks later, his performance against Kansas was even more impressive — he scored touchdowns on all four carries in picking up 59 yards.

For the season, he finished with 451 yards and 12 touchdowns, only one fewer than the entire Longhorns running back corps combined.

Strong believes that Gilbert is smart enough to install the package if necessary and the fact that Texas was able to transition the 18 Wheeler from a short-yardage look to something the ‘Horns could use anywhere on the field suggests that Gilbert wouldn’t have to devote a lot of practice time to it to achieve effectiveness.

It would also provide that crucial 11-on-11 advantage gained by using a running quarterback while keeping the relatively slight Buechele from taking too many hits.

If there is one potential disadvantage to using the package, it’s that it would require significant substitutions that would break up the tempo Gilbert likes to use to tire defenses.

That should be a relatively small impediment as long as the staff wants to make a commitment to ensuring that the running game utilizes every available option to help the team win.

Why should the Longhorns only have two Smash Brothers instead of three?

In the present reality, nothing immediately changes. The ‘Hawks will most likely be mauled without remorse down in Waco this fall. But sooner rather than later will the Bears be joining the ‘Hawks in the Big 12 cellar once again?

The pre-Briles Bears were the clear doormats of the old Big 12 South Division. Although, back when Kansas fielded a respectable gridiron product in Memorial Stadium (yes, children, there was such a time when post season bowling wasn’t just a dream and the Kansas coach was wide enough to eclipse the autumn sun), the Bears were one of the few teams against which the Jayhawks could reliably rack up a conference win.

Following Mangino’s exit from Lawrence and Briles’ arrival in Waco, each respective program took off in starkly different trajectories. Since that point, the Bears and ‘Hawks have faced each other six times on the field resulting in six Bears wins – and that’s putting it gently. These contests haven’t been wins so much as televised assaults in five of those six contests. In four of the six games the Bears posted 50+ on the Jayhawks. The last three years they’ve upped that total to 60 points. In Lawrence. In Waco. It hasn’t mattered.

Briles had Baylor so close to the big time. 10+ wins in four of his last five seasons had his Bears flirting with National Title aspirations. While Baylor is in much better shape than when Briles took over in 2008, seven members of Baylor’s 17th ranked recruiting class – highest in Bears’ football history -€” are already rushing to the life boats on this sinking ship of  a program with more sure to follow their lead.

Briles has exposed himself as a chump, and former Baylor President Ken Starr has now firmly secured his place in U.S. history as one of the greatest ass-hats of the last 30 years. These two men have taken a fine, private, Baptist university and turned it into a national media pariah of Title IX lawsuits and hypocritical rhetoric.

Baylor’s fall is reminiscent of another private, religious, Texas-located university falling while chasing the college football beast of title contention. In the 1980s the SMU Mustangs had title caliber teams. Instead of sexual assaults it was pay-for-play as Eric Dickerson, Craig James and the rest of the vaunted “Pony Express” were driving gold Trans Ams and cashing checks cut from boosters left and right. There was a great ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, Pony Exce$$, about SMU getting close to a National Title only to have their football team relegated to an afterthought due to the transgressions that made those title dreams possible.

Now, comparing ignored sexual assaults with pay-for-play isn’t exactly fair to SMU, but the motivation for both schools’ actions came from a similar place. In Pony Exce$$, it talks about how hard it was for schools like SMU, Baylor, and TCU to try and keep pace with the big boys of the old Southwest Conference, which was the domain of the annoying football zealots (much like the SEC is these days). When you don’t have the unending stream of blue chip recruits coming into your program like Texas and Texas A&M had at the time and places like Alabama and Ohio State have now, a lower-tier program will bend their moral compass in an effort to maintain relevance.

It’s a cautionary tale for any program, but especially for programs on the outside looking in on the elite of college football – places like Kansas. When one of these programs heals itself enough to put its big boy pants back on they have a difficult task of keeping them hiked up while not pantsing themselves by selling out their own integrity.

Kansas doesn’t have to worry about any of this in 2016 for sure, and maybe even the next two seasons. They are that bad. But if David Beaty is the guy to turn things around in Lawrence, it would be in his interest to continually remind himself – today, tomorrow, and every day after that – as to why Briles finds himself on his couch this season.

Success in college football comes at the expense of other’s misfortunes. It’s the nature of any game. If KU hopes to build any success in the conference, they unfortunately benefit from Baylor coming back to the pack because of this scandal. Baylor, a program that Kansas was clearly better than in 2009, has wiped the field with the ‘Hawks, home or away for the past six years.

Sorry Baylor fans. Don’t take it personally. Kansas football fans have suffered long enough that they can’t help but be fine with their Jayhawks turning vulture in the coming seasons – perhaps even to feast on the Baylor football carcass reeling from its self-inflicted wounds.

The commitments just keep coming. Coach MacIntyre and staff added their 10th commitment, and third from Colorado, for the 2017 recruiting class this morning with the addition of offensive tackle Heston Paige.

The son of Bill Paige, who played for UCLA, the younger Paige prides himself on his footwork and ability to finish tackles, two things that would be of great use to the Buffs.

Heston Paige

Image courtesy of Rivals

Position: Offensive tackle Measurables: 6’5, 270 lbs 40 Yard Dash: N/A School: Thunder Ridge High School (Highlands Ranch, Colorado) Rankings: – Rivals: 2-star – 247Sports: No rating – Scout: 2-star – ESPN: No rating Other Schools of Interest: Air Force, California, North Dakota, Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado, Northwestern, Virginia Status: Verbal with Colorado Notes: From Rivals: “I was so excited and blessed to have received an offer from CU,” Paige expressed. “I was just glad that all the hard work paid off. [Offensive line] coach [Klayton] Adams and [head] coach [Mike] MacIntyre said they were impressed with my footwork and liked how my shoulders had gotten bigger. They said they could tell I had been working hard and they were satisfied with the results.”

Welcome aboard, Heston!

Florida has long been the team to beat in and around Tampa on the recruiting trail, but recent years have seen some of the Gators’ primacy in the Bay Area wane. After securing the commitment of four-star defensive end Zachary Carter, maybe Tampa’s best 2017 prospect, on Friday, the Gators have some bite back.

Florida boy forever pic.twitter.com/STZUqCiLrW

— Zachary L Carter™ (@_ZachAttacks) June 24, 2016

Carter has an excellent frame for a defensive end, standing 6’5″ or so and weighing nearly 250 pounds prior to his senior year of high school. The ways in which he can use that frame have made him a consensus four-star prospect, and one of the nation’s top defensive ends.

Carter was thought of as a long-time Florida lean, with interest dating back a year or more, but Clemson — a frequent Florida nemesis in the Tampa area, having pulled Deon Cain, Ray Ray McCloud, and Artavis Scott out of the region in recent years — had surged in the race to secure his commitment in recent weeks, with Carter visiting the Palmetto State for three days just last weekend. But a run on predictions for Clemson turned out to be a false alarm, as Carter, a rising senior at Hillsborough High, is following in the footsteps of Tampa-area defensive end Dante Fowler in choosing the Gators.

His highlights justify more than a bit of excitement.

Carter shows a fine blend of both the strength to disengage from blocks and the quickness and agility to do something afterward, and demonstrates the power to finish tackles and crush quarterbacks, too. He plays a bit higher than one would like at times, but that might be a factor of his height, and leverage is far more coachable than any physical skill.

It’s hard to pick a single current Gator that Carter most resembles. He might be a triangulation of Fowler, Jonathan Bullard, and Alex McCalister, given his combination of speed, power, and length, but I’m tempted to say that sort of combination actually makes him more like Jevon Kearse, whose talents were so freakish that they probably shouldn’t be compared to mere mortals’ skills.

If Carter can have a college career like any of those players, excepting maybe McCalister, his time will probably have been a wild success.

Carter is Florida’s ninth commitment for the 2017 recruiting cycle, and its highest-rated. His commitment will vault Florida from 38th to 26th in the 247Composite recruiting rankings when they are next updated.

As we reported yesterday, New Hampshire recruit Drew McQuarrie has committed to the Eagles, but not as a QB the position he is listed as on most recruiting services. Instead according to McQuarrie, the Eagles have recruited him as a tight end. He has good size and frame (6’5 215 lbs) to be the type of tight end BC needs moving forward. He is the 2nd tight end in this class, joining San Diego native Patrick Brown who committed in the spring. You can check out McQuarrie’s HUDL below

With McQuarrie going to tight end, that leaves the Eagles with room for one more QB in the class of 2017 if they choose to go that route. They have a few options moving forward, and some of their most recent movement have been with QB’s, so it appears that if they get interest they will be taking one of the following:

• CJ Lewis (CT) 3*: A dual threat QB from the same high school as Brandon Sebastian. He was just offered on Wednesday. Given his twitter convo’s, he seems to be very interested in Boston College. Currently holds offers from Buffalo and lesser schools such as UConn.
• Austin Burton (MA/FL) 2*: A very interesting quarterback to watch, he is possibly the highest rated QB in Massachusetts, but here’s the kicker, he’s moving to Florida. Last season he played in Newton, but over the spring he announced he will be playing in the Sunshine State for his senior year. Will be interesting to see how he adjusts to a completely different level of play.
• Tate Haynes (CA) NR: No other current offers for this dual threat QB. He was offered a while ago, not sure if BC would want him at QB.
• Jack Sears (CA) 4*: Would love to see him at BC, but the kid has a ton of big time offers at this point. Probably a real long shot.

Remember the good old days when your mom would take you to school or practice when you were younger, and you couldn’t do it yourself? For Eli Apple, former Ohio State cornerback and now New York Giant, this situation is still valid.

He’s already had several weeks of practices behind him, but Annie Apple—the best mom in football—posted a pair of videos on Twitter where she was still taking her son to practice. She was eating it up, and Eli was trying to play it cool.

You know how moms can be:

Annie Apple is going to be in the spotlight more regularly come the NFL season, when she’ll start working with ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown. She should be able to provide a unique perspective that we haven’t seen on the show, specifically with topics outside of football.

But it’s great to see mother-son relationships like the one between Eli and Annie Apple. It should be fun to see what these two do during the 2016 NFL season.

A week ago, we were all clutching pearls about Vanderbilt’s absence of any verbal commitments in the Class of 2017.  Now, the Commodores have gotten three verbal commitments in the last week as Fort Lauderdale (FL) St. Thomas Aquinas OL Grant Miller dropped the anchor tonight:

Proud to announce that I am committing to Vanderbilt! #AnchorDown ⚓️⛓ pic.twitter.com/pmSsCqclzZ

— Grant Miller (@grantmiller55) June 23, 2016

Miller is the son of Fred Miller, who played thirteen seasons in the NFL for the Rams, Titans, and Bears.  According to his Rivals, 247, and Scout profiles, he’s currently rated as a two-star recruit whose only other Power 5 offer was from Minnesota, but at 6’5″ and 270 pounds and with NFL bloodlines, he certainly looks the part of an offensive tackle:

It’s worth pointing out, of course, that the offensive line might be the most difficult position on the field to project.  So while it might not feel like a spectacular take, you just can’t really tell which 17-year-old linemen are going to develop into something special.  That might be particularly true of Miller, who according to this article was 5’11” and 185 pounds as a sophomore before growing five inches in the last year; and his doctors report that he might grow another inch or two from where he is now.  That would make sense given that his father is 6’7″ and 320.

NC State has become much more creative with its uniforms since Dave Doeren arrived, and that’s been more than welcome. On Wednesday night, the school unveiled the football team’s latest alternates: a throwback to the diamond logo era that spanned the Dick Sheridan and Mike O’Cain tenures.

NC State Athletics Communications

Oct. 8 is the 50th anniversary of NC State’s first game at Carter-Finley. That also happens to be the weekend that Notre Dame comes to town. Safe to say that game is going to be festive. And maybe a little surreal seeing the diamond back on the uniform.

That’ll be the only game these threads make an appearance, I assume. I mean unless NC State wins that game; then the Pack will have to wear those uniforms at home the rest of the year.

It’s a solid, clean look, though I’ve always wanted to see State bring back the helmets it wore during the mid-to-late 1960s. Well, there’s always the 100-year anniversary.