The Cardinal Countdown: 41 Days Until Kickoff

#41 Ramon Puryear

Class: RS Freshman

Ht/Wt: 6-3/255

Position: Defensive Line

Hometown: Louisville, KY (Product of Eastern High School)

Twitter: @RamonPuryear8

Thoughts: The Cards picked up Ramon last year out of Eastern High School as a walk-on. He played in three games last season (EKU, FSU, Miami) and was able to keep his redshirt intact.

Puryear played a significant amount of reps at middle linebacker while with the Eagles but the staff has identified him as someone who could add some depth on the ends at UofL. In the clips below you can see Puryear does a great job at finding the ball and tracking down guys for a loss or at the line, mostly coming from 5 yards off the ball. He is physical but shows some agility in finding gaps and eluding blocks. Like most young players the Cards will need to work on ‘arm tackling’ but his reach allows him to swallow up a big area coming off the end.

Even though he was new to the program Ramon was actually named ‘Defensive Difference Maker’ at the 2019 team awards. The staff appears to be really impressed with his drive and development in just one year as he was actually listed as the second option at end on the summer depth chart.

I’m sure the staff would love to get three or four guys like Ramon each season but the rules say you can only get one Puryear per year (I’m really sorry). Best of luck to Ramon.

Sweet Tweet:

This was obviously from last year, but something very telling is the number of players who responded to this tweet, retweeted, liked, etc excited about what Ramon can do on the field. Looking forward to seeing the local product grow into a larger contributor the next few seasons.

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#41 Isaac Martin

Class: RS Junior

Ht/Wt: 6-1/250

Position: Tight End

Hometown: Louisville, KY (Product of Trinity High School)

Twitter: @IkeMan98

Thoughts: Full disclosure, I fell in love with Isaac by position name alone. When he walked-on at Louisville as a fullback I was all in. Give me the big guys with neck rolls who enjoy nothing more than lighting people up in the trenches all day long. And if you want to mix it up just hand them the ball and watch them run over people for 3-4 yards up the gut.

In the clip below you get two nice back to back plays from Martin last year against FSU. He’s in the backfield towards the bottom of your screen on both plays (#41). The first play we see him seal the edge for Hassan who was able to cut back inside and pick up a nice gain. The second play Martin slips behind the line and finds space in the flats. A normal human would have gone down with a 2 yard gain, but Mr. Martin picks up 8, shedding tackles like a man who’s looking to earn a scholarship…

And oh, by the way, a few weeks ago he did just that.

While Marshon burst onto the scene in 2019 and earned quite a few eyeballs from coaches and fans alike (rightfully so) Martin is another guy who plays that same H back position and does his job very well (See: Offer, Scholarship). While we call them tight ends I prefer to view the H-back as a fullback hybrid, a player out of the backfield with an emphasis on blocking who can also be a threat with the ball in hand. Martin has been a nice contributor so far and still has a couple seasons left to knock some heads together and run over folks.

Sweet Tweet:

Isaac doesn’t tweet much but he retweeted this beauty which just so happens to be my twitter header. Ford, Martin, TDs, yelling….what more could you want? (By the way, the play from the photo is below and Marshon doesn’t score without the block from Isaac)