WEST LAFAYETTE — The first time I saw Purdue wide receiver David Bell play football he was a junior at Warren Central. Within two or three plays I said, “Oh he’s the one bruh! He’s special.” At 16 years old he was in complete control of his body and was simply the best athlete on the field week in and week out. In 2018 he led both his high school basketball and football teams to the Indiana State Championship. He wasn’t just some kid on the team he was the freakin’ man in BOTH sports.
So when he decided to head up to West Lafayette to play for the Boilermakers everybody and their Uncle LeRoy knew that he would show up and show out like Big Momma used to say. Well playas…he had a career day on Saturday as Purdue beat the brakes off of Maryland 40-14.
David Bell was the conductor on Saturday and boyz had to get out of the way like Ludacris was coming through. With Rondale Moore being out the Boilermakers have been looking for that dude that will make defenses say “him too!!” Well playas…on Saturday Maryland kept saying “him too.”
Ole boy finished the day with career highs as he dropped off 9 catches for 138 yards and two touchdowns. Purdue has only had two other freshmen in the history of the program drop off numbers like that.They had Rondale Moore in 2018 do it and the other was Taylor Stubblefield in 2001 catching the rock from Drew Brees. They both eventually became All-Americans at Purdue. I’m not saying that DB will do the same but he’s in crazy good company and has the talent to do it.
He’s not even 100 percent and he’s balling out. He missed part of training camp with problems with his hamstrings and then banged up his shoulder on September 14 against TCU and it’s still bothering him.
During post-game interviews he had this to say about his shoulder, “A few times, I landed on it and I could feel it start aching. After a few minutes, the pain would go away.”
He’s a straight stud that will only get better as long as they feed him the rock. In my Coming to America voice, “That boy good.”
Coach Brohm after the game he had this to say about his talented freshman, “He doesn’t complain. He works extremely hard. He does what we ask, and he’s very unselfish. He makes contested catches. He goes up and catches the deep ball in traffic. He catches the deep ball down the sideline. He showed some physicality after the catch today.”
Keep your eyes open because this kid right here is special and he’ll be the next great one coming out of Purdue. When the Boilermakers get both Moore and Bell 100 percent healthy it’s going to be a serious problem out there for defensive secondaries. Stop me when I start lyin’!
