Penn State junior Abdul Carter received two national honors Tuesday for his performance in a 21-7 victory over Illinois last weekend.
The Football Writers Association of America selected Carter as the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the week. The Maxwell Football Club named him the Chuck Bednarik Award Defensive Player of the Week.
Carter had seven tackles against Illinois – including a career-best four for losses and two sacks – forced a fumble that was recovered by teammate Smith Vilbert and broke up a pass.
“If Abdul keeps stacking games like that, you guys know how his ceiling is,” defensive tackle Dvon J-Thomas said. “He’s just going to be tapping into another level of play that we all know he’s capable of.”
A former La Salle College High School star, Carter played linebacker his first two seasons at Penn State before he was moved primarily to defensive end before this season.
He’s tied for the Big Ten lead with 6.5 tackles for loss and is tied for fourth in the conference with three sacks.
“The good thing is he’s just going to get better,” Lions coach James Franklin said earlier this week. “The transition from linebacker to defensive end is a significant one. He’s already done some really good things.”
Defensive coordinator Tom Allen had him line up at several places along the defensive line to confuse the Illini and to disrupt their offense.
“We started to put more on his plate where we’re doing different things,” Franklin said, “whether it’s lining him up on the left and another time on the right so they can’t game-plan for him and know exactly where he’s going to be.
“Or whether it’s having him spy the quarterback, using him as an add-on in the blitz or lining him up over the center or guard and trying to get him matched up with running backs, you’re going to see him become more and more impactful each week.”
Carter has helped Penn State’s defense rank fourth nationally in points allowed and seventh in total yards allowed.
“Whenever he taps into another level, you’ll see,’ J-Thomas said. “It’s going to bring up the rest of the defensive line. As teams game-plan more and more for him, that’s going to open things up for us to make more plays. It’s going to make the entire defense better.”
