Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1529598
1 4 D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 4 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M Nick Dawkins Has Given The Offensive Line A Lift This is a fun question to debate because you could go in a number of different directions. I'm tempted to pick red- shirt freshman placekicker Ryan Barker. Who would have ever thought that the least we l l k n ow n o f t h e three contenders for the starting job would lose the training camp battle only to take over and thrive as a first- tea m e r by t h e e n d of the season's first month? The buzz around B a r k e r h a d b e e n strong, and there was speculation that he would be a contender at some point in his ca- reer, but his near-per- fect mark to date (8 of 9 on field goal attempts prior to the team's Nov. 23 visit to Minnesota) was not necessarily easy to foresee. The Li- ons would certainly be in worse shape — and probably have more losses — without him. With all that said, though, my pick is redshirt senior center Nick Dawkins. Coming out of the Purdue game on Nov. 16, Penn State was tied for 32nd in the nation in scoring offense (33 points per game) and was 14th in total offense (454.1 yards per game). Dawkins, a first-year starter up front, has been a big part of the team's success. You rarely hear Dawkins' name on game day, which is an offensive lineman's dream, of course. The less they're heard about, the better, the old adage goes, because they're usually only discussed when something goes wrong. Little has gone wrong for Dawkins and the Lions' offensive line this year. It's not easy to be a first-time starter, and that's especially true after the long wait he endured before finally earning a job in the first 11. But through 10 games, Dawkins had played 578 snaps, the second-highest total on the offense be- hind redshirt sophomore left guard Olaivavega Ioane (588). Few could have seen that coming earlier in his career, and it's a credit to the work he has put in behind the scenes to be ready for this moment. A good offense can be torpedoed by a bad center, but Dawkins is pushing this group higher every week. — Greg Pickel Kobe King Has Anchored Penn State's Defense It's no secret that redshirt junior middle linebacker Kobe King has been a very good player for Penn State this sea- son, so I understand why some might balk at his description as an "unsung hero." There are other im- portant contributors w h o p e r h a p s h a ve flown further under the radar than King, a second-year starter who earned honorable mention All-Big Ten honors in 2023. However, with junior defensive end Abdul Carter playing some of his best football in recent weeks and oth- ers like senior safety Jaylen Reed earning praise nationally, I still believe King's season has not been appreci- ated to the degree that it should. With two games left on the schedule, King was third on the team in tackles with 50, in- cluding 6 for loss and 3 sacks. He was trailing only Reed (60) and redshirt junior safety Zakee Wheatley (55) in total tackles, amassing a roughly com- parable number of stops even though he had played 388 snaps to Reed's 518 and Wheatley's 508. Penn State knows how important King is to this defense. The Nittany Lions have been thin at linebacker all season due to injuries and attrition, and their personnel losses have forced coordinator Tom Allen and the defensive staff to adopt a cau- tious approach with King. They have taken advantage of their opportunities to rotate him out as much as possible, well aware that Penn State can't afford to lose him to an injury. Even with the coaching staff looking to manage his snap count whenever possible, King stacks up very strongly with his peers, according to Pro Football Focus. Out of 256 line- backers who had played at least 350 snaps in the FBS this year, King was ranked No. 6 nationally with a grade of 86.4 through 10 games. That's the best grade we've seen from one of Penn State's starting linebackers since Micah Parsons, a consensus All-American and future NFL All-Pro, finished with a 91.6 grade in 2019. — Ryan Snyder Which Player Has Been Penn State's Unsung Hero This Season? Dawkins played the second-most snaps (578) of any player on offense during Penn State's first 10 games. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL King was Penn State's third-leading tackler with 50 stops prior to the team's road finale at Minnesota. PHOTO BY FRANK HYATT