A Purchase Agreement to Pursue: Huskies Offer Colorado Linebacker

This Denver-area edge rusher comes with a resume listing only ultimate success.

Blake Purchase, when he gets there, might be a hard college football player to please.

A stalwart 6-foot-4, 220-pound edge rusher for Cherry Creek High School in the Denver suburbs, Purchase has shared in three Colorado 5A state championships in as many  years — and he still has his senior season to play.

He can't be faulted if he expects to win it all every year. So does his school, which has earned 12 Colorado titles overall. 

With that track record and mindset in mind, Purchase grades out as a coveted 4-star recruit and on Wednesday the University of Washington offered him a scholarship, which he noted on social media.

This past fall, Purchase shared in a 12-2 season that saw the end to Cherry Creek's 25-game winning streak but was capped off with a 21-0 victory over Valor Christian and Oklahoma-bound running back Gavin Sawchuk in the state championship game held at Empower Field at Mile High. 

When it ended, the junior outside linebacker and others were seen jumping into the stands to celebrate the moment with their classmates, a la Green Bay Packers, even though this was Denver Broncos country. 

Purchase finished the season with 83 tackles, coming up with a whopping 18 tackles for loss, including 12 sacks.

Blake Purchase likes the fan attention.
Twitter

For all his success, Purchase holds scholarship offers from USC, Colorado, Colorado State, Iowa State, Washington State, Texas Tech, Marshall, UNLV and the Huskies. 

As a sophomore in 2020, Purchase was a sophomore starter for a senior-laden defense that won a state title, mature beyond his years while coming up with 7 sacks.

As a freshman, he played only sparingly yet still earned a state title and the requisite jewelry that comes with it. Yet there was a difference when he looks at those sporting baubles.

"The first ring I got, I didn't play that much," Purchase pointed out to GridironfootballUSA.com. "The second ring means more because I had an impactful position on the team."

As for that winning attitude, Purchase attributes it to his family, which has been successful from the top down. 

His father Bryan was a University of Colorado basketball player. His older brother Myles, some 5 inches shorter, 40 pounds lighter and two years older, guided Cherry Creek to a pair of state titles as a two-way back, was the game MVP in 2020 and is now an Iowa State cornerback. 

“I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself to get into high school and do well because of what my brother was doing,” Purchase said.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.