Basil Smotherman became the third big timer to verbal to Matty in the now loaded class of 2013. Smotherman is the son of his HS coach at Indianapolis Heritage Christian...never a bad thing to have a coach's son on board- those guys are notoriously heady and hard-working.
You might say that this class is starting to look like that of '07...I'd counter by saying this one is even more talented, at least at this point in their careers. Let's remember JJ was still a largely-unknown commodity and Hummel's game was not as widely known. Plus, those guys weren't Sophomore verbals. They all came much later in the game.
We've said it before, you shouldn't get too excited about a verbal from kids that are barely driving...or not driving yet. But, Scott, Stephens and Smotherman all seem like they just want to be Boilers. Because things tend to happen this way, I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear about a fourth verbal in the coming weeks...that would complete the class...that's quite a contrast from the struggle of '11.
So far, Purdue has 3 top-50 recruits for that class and Smotherman is 26th on their chart. Could we see the first McD AA for Purdue in a long time come from this class? It could happen, but let's also remember that these guys are probably not full-grown yet, so the next two years can change things quite a bit.