Old Oaken Bucket Game Tickets
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - He was hard to miss as an eighth grader, but that wasn't always the case.
Purdue fifth-year offensive lineman Matt McCann comes from an athletic family and has played sports pretty much his entire life.
His father, Matthew, played baseball at Purdue, while his mother, Sheryl, played basketball at Butler University. So, when Matt was a little kid and running all over the home, his parents knew how to solve that problem.
"From Day 1, I just had constant energy, all over the place and jumping around," McCann says. "So they put me in sports."
McCann seemed destined to be tall. His father is 6-foot-5, and his mother 6-1. But from fifth to seventh grade, McCann saw his friends grow and he didn't.
That wasn't good for someone that has been an offensive lineman his entire life. McCann even got cut from a fifth-grade travel football team in his hometown of Fishers, Indiana.
"There was that point in time – I think fifth through seventh grade – where I stayed steady on my growth, and kids starting to hit puberty and started getting big," McCann says.
But then his growth spurt started, and McCann took off. At the end of his seventh grade year he stood 6-feet tall and grew to 6-4 a year later.
All sorts of people started noticing McCann. The height. The positive attitude. The potential.
McCann attended a football camp held by former Purdue standout Ryan Baker, a fellow Indianapolis Bishop Chatard High School alum. At the time, Baker was playing with the Miami Dolphins and took notice of McCann.
"He said I was really big, so I took that as a compliment as an eighth grader," McCann says.
Chatard's football coach at the time, Vince Lorenzano, had his eyes opened, as well.
"In eighth grade, he stood out because he was a big kid," says Lorenzano, who retired after winning seven state championships. "That was the first thing that I saw. He was just a big kid."
Lorenzano quickly found out there was more to like about McCann than just his size.
"He was a very friendly, young guy," Lorenzano says. "He was never a bully, or anything like that, just a very nice kid. I always remember him always smiling, happy to be there. Never missed practice or missed games. Just a real consistent kid all across the board."
McCann was a four-year letterwinner for the Chatard football program and part of its 2012 state championship. He was a three-star recruit coming out of high school, with several Big Ten Conference offers to consider.
He ended up going with the team he had watched his entire life, though, not without some deliberation. Purdue's football program was struggling at the time of McCann's recruitment, while he had offers from more successful programs at the time.
In the end, Purdue won out.
"It just felt like home to me," McCann says. "I really liked it – all of the people and the campus."
McCann's connection with Purdue runs deep. He has two dogs – a schnauzer named Emmy and a pit bull named Tiller, after Purdue's all-time winningest football coach Joe Tiller.
He remembers as an 8-year-old watching Purdue's game against Wisconsin in 2004, the same day ESPN College GameDay visited West Lafayette.
Now, he's playing on the same Ross-Ade Stadium field he watched others play on for years. And he's in his fourth season of being a mainstay on the offensive line, showing the flexibility to play tackle or guard.
McCann started every game his sophomore and junior seasons, for an offensive unit that averaged 403 yards and 443 yards per game, respectively. He started 10 games as a redshirt freshman.
The transition to college wasn't an easy one for McCann, going from a high school with 700 students to a college campus with 40,000. And his definition of a bad play at the high school level is a lot different from that definition at the collegiate level.
"In high school, a bad play for me was that I didn't drive my guy into the ground and pancake him," McCann says. "And a bad play here is getting beat and letting the guy get around you."
McCann's favorite plays are the one where one of his blocks leads to a touchdown, and one in particular stands out as his favorite. In Purdue's triple-overtime loss to Wisconsin last season, wide receiver Rondale Moore scored on a 15-yard pass play in the first overtime.
"I was able to block the linebacker pretty well, and Rondale cut off of it really well and scored his touchdown," McCann says. "I like screen blocks; I think when you have a successful one it shows you can move around and be athletic."
McCann missed the TCU game this season with an injury, a rarity for the two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree who had started the previous 34 contests.
But, McCann returned to start the next game. That type of dependability was also visible during McCann's prep career at Chatard.
"I think he has shown himself as a guy that can be depended on, and he really grew and accepted that challenge," Lorenzano says. "He really accepted the challenge of getting better and that was the thing that stood out to me. He gets better every year, and that's a tribute to the Purdue program."
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - He was hard to miss as an eighth grader, but that wasn't always the case.
Purdue fifth-year offensive lineman Matt McCann comes from an athletic family and has played sports pretty much his entire life.
His father, Matthew, played baseball at Purdue, while his mother, Sheryl, played basketball at Butler University. So, when Matt was a little kid and running all over the home, his parents knew how to solve that problem.
"From Day 1, I just had constant energy, all over the place and jumping around," McCann says. "So they put me in sports."
McCann seemed destined to be tall. His father is 6-foot-5, and his mother 6-1. But from fifth to seventh grade, McCann saw his friends grow and he didn't.
That wasn't good for someone that has been an offensive lineman his entire life. McCann even got cut from a fifth-grade travel football team in his hometown of Fishers, Indiana.
"There was that point in time – I think fifth through seventh grade – where I stayed steady on my growth, and kids starting to hit puberty and started getting big," McCann says.
But then his growth spurt started, and McCann took off. At the end of his seventh grade year he stood 6-feet tall and grew to 6-4 a year later.
All sorts of people started noticing McCann. The height. The positive attitude. The potential.
McCann attended a football camp held by former Purdue standout Ryan Baker, a fellow Indianapolis Bishop Chatard High School alum. At the time, Baker was playing with the Miami Dolphins and took notice of McCann.
"He said I was really big, so I took that as a compliment as an eighth grader," McCann says.
Chatard's football coach at the time, Vince Lorenzano, had his eyes opened, as well.
"In eighth grade, he stood out because he was a big kid," says Lorenzano, who retired after winning seven state championships. "That was the first thing that I saw. He was just a big kid."
Lorenzano quickly found out there was more to like about McCann than just his size.
"He was a very friendly, young guy," Lorenzano says. "He was never a bully, or anything like that, just a very nice kid. I always remember him always smiling, happy to be there. Never missed practice or missed games. Just a real consistent kid all across the board."
McCann was a four-year letterwinner for the Chatard football program and part of its 2012 state championship. He was a three-star recruit coming out of high school, with several Big Ten Conference offers to consider.
He ended up going with the team he had watched his entire life, though, not without some deliberation. Purdue's football program was struggling at the time of McCann's recruitment, while he had offers from more successful programs at the time.
In the end, Purdue won out.
"It just felt like home to me," McCann says. "I really liked it – all of the people and the campus."
McCann's connection with Purdue runs deep. He has two dogs – a schnauzer named Emmy and a pit bull named Tiller, after Purdue's all-time winningest football coach Joe Tiller.
He remembers as an 8-year-old watching Purdue's game against Wisconsin in 2004, the same day ESPN College GameDay visited West Lafayette.
Now, he's playing on the same Ross-Ade Stadium field he watched others play on for years. And he's in his fourth season of being a mainstay on the offensive line, showing the flexibility to play tackle or guard.
McCann started every game his sophomore and junior seasons, for an offensive unit that averaged 403 yards and 443 yards per game, respectively. He started 10 games as a redshirt freshman.
The transition to college wasn't an easy one for McCann, going from a high school with 700 students to a college campus with 40,000. And his definition of a bad play at the high school level is a lot different from that definition at the collegiate level.
"In high school, a bad play for me was that I didn't drive my guy into the ground and pancake him," McCann says. "And a bad play here is getting beat and letting the guy get around you."
McCann's favorite plays are the one where one of his blocks leads to a touchdown, and one in particular stands out as his favorite. In Purdue's triple-overtime loss to Wisconsin last season, wide receiver Rondale Moore scored on a 15-yard pass play in the first overtime.
"I was able to block the linebacker pretty well, and Rondale cut off of it really well and scored his touchdown," McCann says. "I like screen blocks; I think when you have a successful one it shows you can move around and be athletic."
McCann missed the TCU game this season with an injury, a rarity for the two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree who had started the previous 34 contests.
But, McCann returned to start the next game. That type of dependability was also visible during McCann's prep career at Chatard.
"I think he has shown himself as a guy that can be depended on, and he really grew and accepted that challenge," Lorenzano says. "He really accepted the challenge of getting better and that was the thing that stood out to me. He gets better every year, and that's a tribute to the Purdue program."