Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1547107
1 8 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 6 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M Veteran defensive end Ikenna Ezeogu has been tested in more ways than one since joining Matt Campbell at Penn State. Ezeogu, a 6-foot-5, 273-pound red- shirt senior from Blue Springs, Mo., was one of 24 former Iowa State players who headed to State College in the wake of Campbell's appointment as the Nittany Lions' new head coach. At PSU, he's playing for a new defensive coordinator in D'Anton Lynn, and he's got some new responsibilities that have demanded even more athleticism from him than he was asked to display during his time with the Cyclones. In addition to versatility, Ezeogu has also had to show resilience. The Nittany Lions' defense faltered in the fourth quarter of a 24-20 loss to Wisconsin and then gave up 506 total yards in a 34-13 defeat at Northwestern, followed by a 31-23 loss to USC. Despite those disappointing results, Ezeogu had compiled a 72.7 overall de- fensive grade from Pro Football Focus, seventh best among Penn State players with more than a handful of snaps and tops among the team's defensive line- men. Ezeogu recently spoke to Penn State beat reporters about his first and only season with the Nittany Lions. QUESTION: When you go to that third-down package with four defen- sive ends, can you walk us through the strategy of that? What does it do for the defense? EZEOGU: "We call it NASCAR. It's our NASCAR package for the defensive ends so that we can get quicker guys on the field. We want to get to the quar- terback as fast as we can. I feel like our interior guys are really good at that too, but having a package for it [is helpful]. Sometimes we use the guys as spies or we use different things to help the back end a little bit." QUESTION: You came to Penn State from the Big 12. Was there anything about your first Big Ten game that sur- prised you? EZEOGU: "Not really. I just look at it the same. It's a football game, at the end of the day, but obviously the stadium is bigger. The fans are loud. I'm really excited about the fans, because they're making me want to play more. The sta- dium is probably the biggest difference." QUESTION: What was Matt Camp- bell like on the Sunday after the Wis- consin game? That was the first time you guys watched film after a loss. EZEOGU: "He makes sure that we're understanding where we went wrong and what we could do to get better. Obviously, everybody has their opin- ions. Everybody has their feelings about things, but he understands that it's not just one play that defines everything. It's a whole collective thing. There were a lot of things that we could have done better to help us win that game. "He's very close to players. We can talk to him anytime we want to. He un- derstands that, OK, if we did some- thing bad on this play, then we just have got to correct it and do better the next time." QUESTION: As a player, how are your on-field responsibilities different from in previous years at Iowa State? How has your position changed? EZEOGU: "I had never dropped in coverage. I probably dropped in cover- age one time at Iowa State, and that was my sophomore year. But now that I'm here, I'm dropping in coverage quite a bit. That's just [part of] the defense that we run right now. But honestly, I like it a lot. It just gives me versatility, being able to play the different positions that I need to play to allow myself to be suc- cessful when I reach that next level." QUESTION: Do you feel more com- fortable now than you did six months ago? EZEOGU: "I was feeling comfortable in the spring. I'm very good at adapting to things. So when I saw on the board that we're going to have an edge drop, I was like, OK, I have good quickness and the ability to do that. It wasn't re- ally anything that was uncomfortable for me." ■ Sitting Down With Redshirt Senior Defensive End Ikenna Ezeogu Ezeogu had 11 tackles, 4 quarterback hurries and a fumble recovery in the Nittany Lions' first six games. PHOTO BY FRANK HYATT