Panthers OLB Nic Scourton says his 'Purdue weight' is a myth
Carolina Panthers outside linebacker Nic Scourton believes he's currently in the best shape of his entire football career.
Scourton, the team's 2025 second-round selection, spoke with reporters following the final practice of rookie minicamp on Saturday. Beat reporter Sheena Quick would ask the 20-year-old about the chatter around getting back to his "Purdue weight" in the lead-up to the draft.
But Scourton says that label actually isn't a thing, at least in his view.
"I don't know what this narrative is about me being 'Purdue weight," he replied with a laugh. "But I think Panthers fans should be excited for me because I'm the most fit I've ever been, I'm healthy, I'm strong and I'm excited to get to work."
After playing the first two seasons of his collegiate career at Purdue University, Scourton transferred to Texas A&M for the 2024 campaign—where he appeared noticeably larger. The Aggies, in fact, listed Scourton as heavy as 285 pounds this past year.
Then, when it came time to measure up at the 2025 scouting combine, Scourton hit the scale at 257 pounds.
The number from Purdue that may matter most for Scourton, however, is 10.0—the total of sacks he amassed in 2023. That Big Ten-leading tally—due to a change in defensive scheme, according to Scourton—dipped to 5.0 in 2024.
So as long as he's racking up the takedowns, the weight, whether it be "Purdue weight," "Texas A&M weight," or "Panthers weight," should be just fine.
Follow @ThePanthersWire on Twitter/X for more Panthers content.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
27 minutes ago
- USA Today
Legends and leaders, meet dumb and dumber: Big Ten's CFP plan is latest college sports bad idea
Let me take you to the intersection of dumb and dumber, and the undoing of a once proud conference of legends and leaders. There, standing proudly in the middle of it all, is Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and his reported 28-team College Football Playoff idea. And by idea, I mean the Big Ten's postseason desire specifically leaked to gauge the winds of change. This is where we are with the oldest conference in college football, the one-time collection of Midwest schools and foundational stability of the sport that not long ago held itself above the fray of the ever-changing whims of public opinion and stayed the course. PATH TO PLAYOFF: Sign up for our college football newsletter But legends and leaders, everyone, has become dumb and dumber. The metamorphosis began on a dreary, confusing day in the summer of 2020 when the world was coping with something called COVID-19. It was then, on a conference call with the other power conferences commissioners, where the seeds of this strange undoing blossomed. The commissioners were attempting to figure out a non-conference schedule for the pandemic season, when then-Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren interrupted the conversation and declared, 'We're the Big Ten, we lead, we don't follow' — and hung up. From that moment forward, the moves made by the Big Ten – a group of schools former legendary commissioner Jim Delany once called the 'conscious of college sports' – fundamentally and profoundly altered amateur sports. It wasn't long after the failed conference call that Warren canceled the fall season for the Big Ten, and pitched the idea of spring football and playing two seasons in nine months. Maybe the dumbest idea ever. Stick a pin in that, people. We'll get back to the dumbest of dumb. In that same pandemic season, after the Big Ten was forced into playing in the fall because everyone else found a way to play through the obstacles, it 'returned to play' with the rule that all teams had to play six games to be eligible for the Big Ten championship game (and by proxy, the CFP). Until, that is, it became clear that undefeated Ohio State would only play five games. Then the rules were readjusted midstream, and lowly Indiana got jobbed when the path was cleared for the blue blood Buckeyes. But it wasn't until Texas and Oklahoma decided in 2021 to leave the Big 12 for the SEC that dumb officially hit the fan in the Big Ten. That singular move began a cavalcade of dumb that tsunami'ed over more than a century of smart, measured decision-making. Warren convinced the Pac-12 (which never did anything without big brother's stamp of approval) and the ACC that the SEC was the death of college sports, and the three power conferences needed to band together in an 'Alliance' of like minds and goals for the future. And to stop the SEC at all cost. Less than a year later, Warren stabbed his 'partners' in the back by inviting Southern California and UCLA to join the Big Ten, thereby completely destabilizing the Pac-12 and, after the dominoes of change began to fall, every other conference in college football. The ink was barely dry on that dumb when the Big Ten realized two important things: travel was going to be extremely difficult (still is), and USC and UCLA needed partners on the West Coast. So Oregon and Washington were invited, which eventually led to Stanford and California moving to the ACC — a move rivaling all for dumbest of dumb. Two years later, with Petitti new on the job and the SEC in the middle of yet another championship run, the Big Ten decided to essentially look the other way on Michigan's illegal advanced scouting scheme. You want dumb? Check out this dumb: Michigan, already being investigated by the NCAA for illegal contact with players during the pandemic season, had a second NCAA investigation opened in the middle of the 2023 season — this time for the advanced scouting scheme. But instead of suspending Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh for the season because he and the program were repeat offenders, Petitti decided a three-game suspension would suffice for a coach and a team that had the talent to win it all. I know this is going to shock you, but Michigan won the whole damn thing. Fast forward to last month, and the Big Ten is coming off back-to-back national championship seasons. The conference hasn't been this strong in decades, and SEC coaches are begging to play non-conference games against Big Ten schools. So what does Petitti do? Because of scheduling conflicts in Indianapolis, he moves Big Ten media days to Las Vegas. Without the swooning Ohio State media hoard and wall-to-wall coverage from the Big Ten Network, it was a barren wasteland of opportunity. What should have been a time for the Big Ten to walk tall, stick out its chest and stand above everyone else in college football, devolved into tumbleweeds in the desert. There was more energy on the fake beach, a football field away at Mandalay Bay resort. This leads us all the way back to the dumbest of dumb: the Big Ten's proposed super duper, extra large CFP. Not to be confused with another dumb idea: the 4-2-1-3 CFP model that the Big Ten, and only the Big Ten, wants for the new CFP contract in 2026. You remember that one: the Big Ten and SEC get four automatic spots in the 16-team field, and get the opportunity to earn one or more of the three at-large selections. In a 28-team model, the Big Ten and SEC would each get seven automatic bids, and the ACC and Big 12 five. Because nothing says battling for the postseason quite like eight-win Louisville and Baylor reaching the dance. Or more to the point: five-loss Michigan with an automatic pass to the CFP. 'Formats that increase the discretion and role of the CFP Selection Committee,' Petitti said last month at Big Ten media days, 'Will have a difficult time getting support from the Big Ten.' We're the Big Ten. We lead, we don't follow. All the way to the intersection of dumb and dumber. Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
San Francisco Chronicle
4 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Pirates ace Paul Skenes is having a Cy Young-worthy season everywhere but the win-loss column
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Paul Skenes is a numbers nerd. Well, most of the time anyway. The Pittsburgh Pirates ace will make it a point to glance up at the ribbon boards that instantaneously spew out the data following each pitch — velocity, drop, horizontal movement — to get a feel for whether the ball is doing what he wants it to do after it leaves his hands. He considers the practice educational. A way for the former Air Force cadet who once majored in military strategy before transferring to LSU to decipher what's working and what's not during a given start. Yet there are two numbers the 23-year-old insists he isn't paying much attention to, at least publicly anyway: his personal win-loss record. Those numbers remained stuck at 7-9 following six occasionally fiery innings in what became a 5-2 victory over American League-leading Toronto on Monday night. Facing a team that entered the night with the highest batting average and fewest strikeouts in the majors — and with almost certain future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer watching intently from the Toronto dugout — Skenes allowed five hits and struck out eight. When he slowly loped, head down as always, from the mound after fanning Blue Jays third baseman Ernie Clement to end the top of the sixth, a sizable chunk of the PNC Park crowd rose to its feet. All too often during what has become a frustrating season for a last-place team, so is the result. When the Pirates failed to break a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the sixth, it meant that Skenes was left a no-decision for the 10th time in 26 starts. In nine of those starts, he's allowed two runs or fewer, one of the main reasons he could become the first starting pitcher with a losing record to claim the Cy Young. That prospect puts him at the forefront of the increasingly charged debate around whether 'pitcher wins' are a valuable metric in determining a pitcher's actual worth, something that's not lost on him. Yet asked if the lack of 'Ws' under his name bothers him, he shrugs. Yes, he cares about winning. More specifically, he cares about the Pirates winning. Whether he gets credit for it on the days he gets the ball is beside the point. 'I mean definitely the fact that we have more runs than (the opponents) do at the end of the game, that's the biggest thing,' Skenes said. Skenes then broke down why reliever Evan Sisk picked up his first big league victory by pitching a scoreless seventh before the Pirates took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning when Henry Davis dashed home following a wild pitch. 'I grinded, frankly, to get through six,' Skenes said. He pointed directly at a 24-pitch third inning, when Toronto became the first opponent to score an earned run against Skenes at PNC Park since June 3. If he navigates that part of the game a little more efficiently, maybe he's out there for the seventh. Maybe even the eighth. 'If I do that, there's probably a 'win' next to my name,' he said. Instead, he stood on the top step of the dugout and watched Sisk, Kyle Nicolas and Dennis Santana get the final nine outs as the Pirates won for just the second time in nine games. Yes, getting the victory would have been cool. But there was joy in having the 28-year-old Sisk get dumped in a basket after picking up his first major-league victory following seven long seasons in the minors. As Sisk openly wondered what he might do with the ball commemorating the moment, Skenes jokingly suggested from a couple of stalls away that Sisk might not want to play catch with it. It was a rare and welcome moment of levity for a team that began the year with heightened expectations (internally anyway) before reality set in. Skenes' won-loss record isn't a reflection of his remarkable performance — he leads the majors in ERA (2.16) and is in the top six in innings, strikeouts and batting average against — but his team's offensive ineptitude. The Pirates rank at or near the bottom of the majors in nearly every major statistical category. That part of the equation is out of Skenes' control. So he is trying to focus on what he can, namely the process of navigating the rigors of a 162-game season and everything that comes with it. He's still trying to figure out how to make sure he gets enough sleep given the erratic schedule. To make sure his diet doesn't slip when the club is on the road. To consistently do all the little things behind the scenes that help him be at his best every fifth day. 'If you aren't taking care of your routine and everything now, it can catch up to you in five, ten years, two years,' he said. 'So you can't cut corners because at some point, you're going to run out of paper.'
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Bloomington South vs. Lawrence Central football scrimmage highlights
Watch the Panthers go up against the Bears from Indy and hear from coach Gabe Johnson after their scrimmage on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025
