Over the last few years, Purdue football has had great success with punters from Australia.
This year promises to be no different as Melbourne native Keelan Crimmins is getting accustomed to West Lafayette and the Purdue football program. Crimmins, who was the third ranked punter from ProKick Australia’s Class of ’23, transferred to the Boilermakers from Mississippi State. While with the Bulldogs, Crimmins punted 49 times for 2,003 yards, averaged just under 41 yards a boot and landed 15 punts inside the 20-yard line.
Crimmins met with the media recently and talked about his adjustment to Purdue and how things are going with the Boilermakers.
“Meeting all the coaches, the support staff, the strength coaches and academics, they were all on the same page so it made my decision pretty easy. Once I met them all, I committed right away,” Crimmins said.
One of the coaches that has had a strong impact on the Australian native is senior special teams analyst Chris Petrilli.
“It’s been good. When I came up here for the visit, he was straight to the point. He keeps everything pretty simple in terms of my role and what he wants out of me. He’s been good so far and has really made my transition straight forward. Coach P has been everything I could ask for,” Crimmins said.
Crimmins has been everything Petrilli could ask for as well.
“He’s a super serious dude. Cares about his training. Ro loves him in the weight room. That should say something about him. He’s got a lot of clubs in his bag with that kick of his and he’s self motivated. He matches my intensity, matches my attention to detail. Good leader in the room, just a great kid,” Petrilli said.
After spending last season as a rugby style kicker, Crimmins acknowledged the plan this year is to mix it up between a more traditional set and rugby style sets.
“It’ll be a bit of everything. They are asking me to practice a bit of everything, and, hopefully, that is what I will do on game day,” he said.
Crimmins did take some time to clear up some misconceptions about Australia, especially when it comes to encounters with deadly animals.
“I was from Melbourne, so I was from the city. I probably saw a snake once or twice. It’s a fairly big myth and all this Tik Tok stuff puts it out of proportion,” Crimmins said.
However, he did admit there were some big cultural differences coming from Australia to Mississippi State and now Purdue.
“The first place I landed from Australia was Starkeville, Mississippi and that was a fairly big shock. I had a few things said to me. Indiana is completely different. It’s far closer to home. You have big cities only two hours up the road, and it’s completely different than Stark Vegas,” Crimmins said.
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