Meet Rondale Moore, Purdue’s thunder-and-lightning WR

The Boilermakers’ best recruit in years has exceeded the hype in his first year in West Lafayette.

Purdue has its most exciting football player since, uh, Drew Brees? His name is Rondale Moore, and he’s a freshman receiver and return man from Louisville, Kentucky.

You might have come across Moore in one of Purdue’s two big nationally televised games so far. One was the season opener against Northwestern, when he had 11 catches for 109 yards and a touchdown, to go with 79 rushing yardsand another touchdown there. The other is Week 8’s primetime game against Ohio State, in which Moore started his night by catching four of six targets for 61 yards in just the first quarter against an elite defense.

Moore is one of Purdue’s highest-profile recruits ever.

The Boilermakers have been a doormat for years, both on the field and the recruiting trail. But as the Boilers got better in Jeff Brohm’s first year, their recruiting improved, too.

Moore, a consensus four-star recruit, had been verbally committed to Texas. He decommitted from the Longhorns late in the 2018 cycle, and he signed with Brohm’s Boilermakers after that. He was the first four-star to pick Purdue since 2013. (Since his commitment, a handful more blue-chips have committed to Purdue for 2019.)

Brohm has recruited like gangbusters in Moore’s native Kentucky, where Brohm used to play at Louisville and then became head coach at WKU.

Moore’s main thing is that he’s incredibly fast and agile.

Many exhibits are right here:

But Moore’s also really strong — period, not just for a 5’9, 175-pounder.

Here he is squatting 600 pounds in offseason training:

In addition to being able to squat well more than three times his body weight, Moore is hard to bring down and packs a real punch in the open field. He’s not just an elusive speed guy, though he certainly can be when he’s trying to get away from you.

Moore’s going to be a huge asset to Purdue’s offense for a while.

The Boilers get at least two more years out of him barring injury or transfer, and maybe three given that his height will give a lot of NFL teams pause about drafting him.

That’ll be foolish on teams’ parts, though. Moore is both thunder and lightning wrapped into one receiver. He’s going to infuriate a lot of Big Ten defenses.