WKU Football: Starting Linebacker Ben Holt To Grad Transfer to Purdue
With spring practice just around the corner, the Hilltoppers got bad news for the third off season in a row as The Courier Journal’s…
With spring practice just around the corner, the Hilltoppers got bad news for the third off season in a row as The Courier Journal’s Dominique Yates reported that starting linebacker Ben Holt will leave the Hill as a grad transfer and head up to Purdue.
Holt was a starting linebacker for the past two seasons, working his way from walk-on to leader on the defense. In 2018, he accumulated a team-leading 116 tackles (11.5 for loss), 2.5 sacks and a forced fumble. He was supposed to be a bedrock on a WKU defense that returns 72% of their production in 2019.
Now, rookie head coach Tyson Helton will have to promote from within (Eli Brown maybe) or have to hope he can find an impact transfer of his own to fill the hole that Holt’s departure has caused.
Holt will be reunited with his father, Nick Holt, the Purdue defensive coordinator and his former head coach, Jeff Brohm. He is the third grad transfer to leave WKU for Purdue in three off seasons (T.J. McCollom and Dennis Edwards). While his case is obviously unique compared to the previous two (he is rejoining his father), I can’t help but lose respect for Jeff Brohm for continuing to take impact players from the program. There are very few examples of former coaches repeatedly taking impact grad transfers from their former schools.
One reason WKU was successful from 2011–2016 was the fact that they kept all of their star players (Doughty, Lamp, Taylor, etc.) from leaving for so-called “bigger opportunities.” Hopefully, this is the last example of this happening. Good luck to Ben at Purdue let’s hope this trend of losing star players ends with him.