When Devin Mockobee came to Purdue he was not even on scholarship. He will leave as one of hte most accomplished running backs in the program’s history. After 45 consecutive games mockobee was ruled out
on Saturday at Michigan, and today it was announced that his season is over, in addition to his Purdue career since he is a fifth year senior.
Mockobee finishes his career at Purdue with 2,983 yards rushing, putting him fourth on the school’s all-time list behind Mike Alstott, Kory Sheets, and Otis Armstrong. He is also fourth with 630 career carries, and 8th with 23 rushing touchdowns. He also had nine games with at least 100 rushiung yards, finishing fourth there, and just missed on a 10th when he had 98 yards at Minnesota a few weeks ago.
A versatile receiver too, Mockobee closes with 839 yards receiving and three more touchdowns. That gives him 3,860 all-purpose yards, which is 7th all-time at Purdue behind Dorien Bryant, Sheets, Alstott, Akeem Hunt, Armstrong, and Vinny Sutherland. This season he even threw for a touchdown when he connected on a trick play to Ryan Browne at Notre Dame.
One has to wonder where Mockobee would have finished all-time if not for the program imploding. His 968 yards as a freshman in 2022 came even when he did not play in the opener against Penn State because he was down on the depth chart. He finished iwth 807 the following season, but the last two years have seen the yards much harder to come by since the Purdue offense has been, for lack of a better term, mostly trash.
Malachi Thomas and Antonio Harris, who each have 206 rushing yards on the season, figure to benefit the most from this in terms of more carries in the final three games of the season, and with Harris as a sophomore he is auditioning for a bigger role next year. Sophomore Jaheim Merriweather is the only other running back on the roster with a carry this year, going for four yards on two carries. He did have 15 for 77 and a score last season.
