Purdue Football: 3 signees who’ll have instant impact in 2020

When you begin to add depth to your team, one thing a coach wants to see happen is young guys take spots from older players.

Last year’s center, Sam Garvin, was originally recruited as a guard. Not only that, he was a two-star. Jeff Brohm and the offensive staff wants a player the caliber of Hartwig to compete and hopefully overtake Garvin at the center position. This would allow him to go back to guard, or — if they like Garvin at center — kick Hartwig over to guard — he did play some guard in high school as well.

Recruits like Hartwig are important to Purdue because Brohm is still in the early stages of building his program. The key weakness of Purdue that was exposed both against Auburn two years ago and this season was the offensive line. They still do not have a Big Ten-level unit. They are undersized and full of two and three-stars.

Hartwig comes into camp arguably the best offensive linemen on the team. He’s definitely the best offensive line recruit Brohm has signed since he’s been in West Lafayette.