Not bad for the former walk-on.
We all knew George Karlaftis and David Bell would hear their names get called in the 2022 NFL Draft, but would there be a third player from Purdue? Well, it turns out there is, as running back Zander Horvath heard his name called with the 260th pick by the Los Angeles Chargers, almost becoming Mr. Irrelevant in the process.
Round 7, No. 260 overall: @chargers select @BoilerFootball RB Zander Horvathhttps://t.co/ns1npjuZJ3#NFLDraft
— NFL Draft (@NFLDraft) April 30, 2022
Not bad for a guy that was a walk-on with no major offers a few years ago. Horvath busted his ass in the weight room and turned himself into a physical adonis. As a redshirt freshman walk-on in 2018 he rushed for 42 yards on 9 carries with a garbage time touchdown at Illinois. He became the closest thing Purdue had to a feature back over the new few seasons, though he was limited to 320 yards and 3 TDs on 91 carries in 2021 because of a broken leg early in the season at UConn. He finished his career with 242 carries for 1,081 yards and 7 TDs, while also catching 62 passes for 533 yards and a score.
Horvath is a very big back at 6’3” 230 pounds. He has very good hands though and can be used as a superback. He can also always be a special teamer. His stats were pretty good considering Purdue struggled in run blocking for much of the last three years and just never made the running game a priority. He had four 100 yards games in his career, with the highlight being 164 yards and two scores against Indiana in 2019.