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Finding information about walk-ons is sometimes hard to do for this countdown. Many are lightly recruited and the info can be scattered all over the place. For today’s player his own family reached out to me more than a week ago to provide his background:
Ryan Flaherty - Fr. (RS)
New Carlisle, IN (New Prairie HS)
6’5”, 300 pounds
Offensive Line
2017 Projection: Deep reserve on the offensive line.
Purdue lists Ryan’s high school as New Carlisle in northern Indiana, but he played at Chicago’s Mount Carmel HS for three years before moving. that school is the in the Chicago Catholic League, which is a pretty good football league in the Windy City.
While at Mount Carmel he played with Steve Richardson at Minnesota and Enoch Smith at Michigan State under Frank Lenti, who has been there for more than 30 years. He was a member of two teams that won state championships when he was a freshman and a sophomore.
Ryan came to Purdue for its engineering program, much to the chagrin of his family, who are Notre Dame alums, students, and supporters.