Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1530530
1 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M F ollowing an 11-1 regular season, two of the Penn State football team's top performers received major awards from the Big Ten. Junior edge rusher Abdul Carter was named the Nagurski– Woodson Defensive Player of the Year, as well as the Smith-Brown Defensive Line- man of the Year. On offense, senior Tyler Warren was the Kwalick-Clark Tight End of the Year. Carter became the seventh Nittany Lion to be named the conference's top defensive player, joining LaVar Arrington (1998), Courtney Brown (1999), Michael Haynes (2002), Jared Odrick (2009), Devon Still (2011) and Carl Nassib (2015). An All-Big Ten honoree as both a fresh- man and sophomore, Carter is finishing up his first season as a defensive end. He moved to the position from linebacker this past offseason and has thrived at the spot, ranking first in the league with 19.5 tackles for loss and tied for second with 10 sacks. He is the first Nittany Lion player with 10 sacks in a season since Nassib posted a school-record 15.5 in 2015. "When you watch the tape, the guy is impactful," head coach James Franklin said, "whether it's sacks, tackles for loss, holding calls, or whether it's obvious that [the opponent has] a specific plan in place for how they're trying to limit his impact — keeping tight ends in, keeping running backs in, always sliding in his direction so there's a double-team between the tackle and the guard. He is impacting the game in a number of ways, which creates op- portunities for other guys on our defen- sive line and within our defense. It causes a lot of headaches." Carter is a finalist for the Lombardi and Bednarik awards, which salute the top lineman and top defensive player, re- spectively, in college football. He said after Penn State's regular-sea- son finale against Maryland that he felt he should be in the Heisman Trophy conver- sation this year. He won't win that award, but he is having one of the best seasons of any defender in Penn State history, on and off the field. "He's been great," Franklin said. "His attitude has been great. He is coachable. He is becoming more and more of a leader every single day." On the offensive side of the ball, Penn State has gotten leadership and a whole lot of yards from Warren. He was saluted by the conference for those efforts, earn- ing the first major award of his career. Penn State has been promoting War- ren for months as a candidate for a va- riety of postseason honors, notably the Mackey and Hornung awards, which go to the nation's best tight end and most versatile player, respectively. PSU put together a hype video featuring high- lights from his high school and college careers, testimonials from coaches and teammates, and even an appearance from longtime NFL tight end Rob Gronkowski urging football fans to "check out my boy, Tyler Warren." The Big Ten voting panels did just that and liked what they saw. They made Warren the second Penn State tight end to win the honor since it was first handed out in 2011. One of Warren's for- mer teammates, Pat Freiermuth, won the award in 2020. The Penn State offense has run through Warren all year. He set Big Ten single-sea- son records for tight ends with 88 recep- tions for 1,062 yards and is now the Nit- tany Lions' career leader at the position in receiving yards (1,584) and touchdowns (17). Warren has five 100-yard receiving games in his career, breaking a PSU record that had been held by one of the Big Ten award's namesakes, Ted Kwalick. Carter, Warren Headline PSU's All-Big Ten Contingent G R E G P I C K E L | G R E G . P I C K E L @ O N 3 . C O M NEWS & NOTES Following a regular season in which he led the league with 19.5 tackles for loss, junior edge rusher Abdul Carter became the seventh Nittany Lion to be named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS