Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/604314
P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L > > A star ranking? Yeah, right. Carl Nassib didn't even have a Rivals.com recruiting profile, let alone stars by his name, coming out of high school almost five years ago. No letter of intent to sign. No reporters to fend off, and with that, he was com- pletely OK. Publicity isn't really his thing, anyway. "It's not that I don't like it," he said at one of his few media appearances this season. "I would just rather pass the torch on to other people who I think are better at that than me." There has come a point, however, in which he's unable to avoid it. Now deep into his senior season, the defensive end has gone from a relative unknown to a household name in college football. Placed atop Penn State record books, too, Nassib has surpassed storied names like Brown, Haynes and Kubin, and he finds himself among the top candidates for some of the most prestigious postseason awards, named after guys like Bednarik, Lombardi, Hendricks and Lott. Nassib, a name that at one time most fans were mostly unfa- miliar with, is now cementing his place in Penn State lore. Among all the greats, though, the names with whom Nassib might be most proud to be associated are McGloin, Norwood and Butler, and the award that most properly illustrates the path he's traveled is named after a guy called Burlsworth, honoring the best former walk-on of the season, the guys without the star rank- ings. "Whatever that stuff means," Nassib said. Having to pay his own way at first, foot- ing the scholarship bill for a couple years, Nassib is now seeing a five-star return THE POWER THINKING Breakout defensive star Carl Nassib practices addition by subtraction | NEGATIVE OF