Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1503568
A U G U S T 2 0 2 3 6 5 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / L I N E B A C K E R S / / / / / / / while discussing Carter's upcoming sea- son, likening the sophomore to a pitcher with a well-defined skill set. "Abdul is certainly a guy who has some versatility," Diaz said, "but you don't want him to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. I think it's important to still be great at one thing, and one of the things that has been a message for many of our players on defense is, in baseball, having a great fastball makes you a domi- nant pitcher. You don't need 13 pitches when you've got a dominant fastball. "You need a dominant fastball and a good changeup to be a great pitcher. Let's make sure we're working on your fastball, because usually, to go 1-0 every week, which is the goal of this program, that has a lot more to do with your fast- ball than it does with your third or fourth pitch." 'There's More That He Can Do' Carter has bought into that belief and emphasized it this offseason. He's listed at 6-foot-3, 250 pounds, up from last year's playing weight of 235, and he ex- pects that the added muscle will only en- hance his ability to overwhelm blockers, stop ball carriers and sack quarterbacks. To Diaz, those skills comprise Carter's fastball. "You can see his short-area quick- ness," the second-year defensive coor- dinator said. "Whether that's an ability to make plays in the run game inside the box, whether that's rushing the passer as we saw a year ago, chasing down quar- terbacks, he's got great acceleration, start/stop, and then obviously, he's long, has great length, and can finish plays. "I think he also has a great sense of confidence in himself when he's on the field. He has great belief in his abilities when he's out there, and he's able to hone those things with the understand- ing of what's going on around him." As a true freshman last season, Carter started six games and finished second on the team with 56 tackles. That's one area in which his résumé differs from the one that Parsons compiled at Penn State. Parsons didn't make a single start in 2018, but he led the team with 83 stops, becoming the first freshman in school history to do so. While Carter didn't equal Parsons' tackling total, he was a game-changer for the Nittany Lions. His 6.5 sacks led the team and were 5 more than Parsons amassed in his debut season. One of the reasons Parsons didn't make more negative-yardage plays as a freshman was because he was moving to linebacker from defensive end, where he had excelled at Harrisburg High. Pry knew that Parsons was a singular talent, but he didn't want to overwhelm him in his first college season. Diaz, on the other hand, quickly real- ized he could unleash Carter as a pass rusher while also moving him around the field in ways Pry didn't do with Parsons out of the gate. The next step for Carter, just as it was for Parsons, is to develop into a leader who understands what's coming based on formations and subtle clues in an opposing player's alignment. He was a summer arrival last year and had just two months to prepare for his first game as a Nittany Lion. That meant he was react- ing rather than analyzing what he was seeing on the opposite side of the line of scrimmage. This year, with a full offseason under his belt, he'll be better able to diagnose plays and position himself accordingly. "He knows that there's more that he can do," Diaz said. "He knows in terms "[Carter] has a great sense of confidence in himself when he's on the field. He has great belief in his abilities when he's out there, and he's able to hone those things with the understanding of what's going on around him." D E F E N S I V E C O O R D I N A T O R M A N N Y D I A Z Carter had to play catch-up in preseason camp after arriving at PSU last summer, but he went on to start the last six games of the season and finished second on the team with 56 tackles. PHOTO BY DANIEL ALTHOUSE