Best of the Lions in 2009

Daryll Clark and Jared Odrick were the leading players for a team that is still in the running for a BCS bowl.

Sunday News

Nov 29, 2009 00:16 EST

By MIKE GROSS, Assistant Sports Editor

It's not like Penn State's football team is lacking for attention.

Six Nittany Lions — quarterback Daryll Clark, running back Evan Royster, center Stefen Wisniewski, tackle Dennis Landolt, defensive tackle Jared Odrick and linebacker Navorro Bowman — made first team all-Big Ten Conference according to the league's coaches.

(Yes, that's as many Penn State first-teamers on the offensive line as on the entire defense, which somehow did not cause an investigation of the voting process, but never mind …)

Odrick, Lebanon's and the Lancaster-Lebanon League's own, was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year by the coaches.

Three Lions (Wisniewski, LB Josh Hull and long snapper Andrew Pitz) were named first-team Academic All-America. No other Division I-A school had that many.

Joe Paterno was the recent subject of a fawning Sports Illustrated profile from Joe Posnanski, who may be America's current Sportswriter Laureate.

The Lions are by all appearances very much in the running for a BCS bowl bid despite having been beaten soundly by the only two really good teams they played.

Call it piling on if you will, but we're doing our regular-season awards anyway. Consider it a season-long version of our weekly, post-game highs and lows.

Team MVP: Quarterback Daryll Clark. MVP as opposed to, necessarily, Best Player. Clark still hasn't come up huge in a close game against a top-shelf opponent. I don't know what to do with that (how many chances has he had?).

But he was the all-Big Ten QB for the second straight year, deservedly, and was Penn State's most indispensable piece.

Defensive MVP: DT Jared Odrick. Odrick finished tied for Nick Sukay for fifth on the team in tackles. His value is the space he plugs and the attention he draws from opponents.

That value is more than enough, according to the league's coaches and NFL scouts, who now have Odrick pegged as a first-round pick.

As for people who don't get that, as Odrick grandly said after the Northwestern game last month, "I guess they don't understand football."

Special-teams MVP: Punter Jeremy Boone. Yes, Penn State special-teams MVP is a little like best dancer at a fat farm, but Boone, from Mechanicsburg, was second-team all-league for the second straight year. It's not like we're choosing among flawless diamonds here.

Coaching-staff MVP: Defensive coordinator Tom Bradley. For the umpteenth time. Bradley had a secondary of all rookie starters and constant player losses due to injuries and other issues. The Lions finished fourth in the country in scoring defense and seventh in total defense. Bradley held it together, because that's what he always does.

Overachiever (offense): Wide receiver Graham Zug. The ex-walk-on from Manheim Central has exceeded everyone's expectations, including JoePa's, except his own. And maybe his mom and dad's.

You can say Zug gets what he does because defenses are keying on the faster guys, but Ohio State was the best defense the Lions faced. Zug had seven catches, or six more than the other wideouts.

At Michigan, down 7-0: Zug TD, the first of three. At Michigan State, tied at the half: two third-quarter Zug TDs. It's not like he just lit up Eastern Illinois, folks.

Overachiever (defense): LB Josh Hull. On one hand, Hull has a 3.56 GPA in environmental systems engineering. On the other, Hull has what might be college football's worst 1970s mustache. Don't know what to tell you.

Hull made second-team all-conference despite not being a three-down player. That's because he finds the ball, gets to it and stops it, which is a very good thing for linebackers to do.

Best game: It's not like we're choosing from flawless diamonds here, either. What an uninspiring, uncompetitive, undramatic dozen football games 2009 comprised. Let's go with the 34-13 win at Northwestern Oct. 31.

I know. The game of the year was 34-13? But it was tied in the fourth quarter before Penn State turned on the afterburners. And if Northwestern QB Mike Kafka hadn't gotten hurt …

Strangest development: Recall that in Daryll Clark's first non-garbage-time appearance, as a sophomore in the 2007 Alamo Bowl, he was used exclusively as a power runner. He was a counterpoint to Anthony Morelli much as Tim Tebow, as a Florida freshman, spelled Chris Leak.

By this season, Clark's senior year, he was almost exclusively a pocket passer. Why?

When was the last time Penn State ran a QB option? It used Zack Mills more as a runner. Five times more. It used Matt Senneca more as a runner.

Yes, the coaches were afraid of Clark getting hurt. Wasn't that an equally important consideration for, say Michael Robinson?

Worst trend: No, it's not the inability to quickly develop offensive lines, which can't be called a mere trend at this point.

Consider this exchange with a buddy at the gym last month.

Buddy: "Who's Penn State have this week?"

This Space: "Minnesota."

Buddy: "I guess once the Big Ten starts they can't schedule schools for the blind anymore."

This guy actually played football at Pitt, so he may have been ax-grinding. But I have that conversation, in substance, all the time. I bet you have it all the time.

It may have become the program's defining characteristic.

Say Penn State football, and, increasingly, people don't think, "Linebacker U,", or "success with honor."

They think, "They don't play anybody."

Fair or not, accurate or not, reasonable or not: "They don't play anybody."

 

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Mike Gross is assistant sports editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at mgross@lnpnews.com.