James Laurinaitis wins Nagurski Award... [Archive]

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buckeyefan78

12-05-2006, 03:57 PM

The Buckeye beat out Florida's Reggie Nelson and Michigan's Leon Hall for the award as top defensive player of the year.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2686512

I'll buy this one. The Little Animal had a great year. I wasn't too pleased with his performance against Michigan though. It was purely average. He's only a sophmore so he gets two more cracks at 'em though. Always room for improvement.

Alex

12-05-2006, 04:02 PM

Should be an interesting Butkus Award decision. While Ole Miss' Patrick Willis is a finalist, the good money will be on Laurinaitis and Paul Posluszny. Looks like the shoe is on the other foot this year. Poz is the senior and Laurinaitis is the youngster. Hopefully unlike Hawk last year, the senior comes out on top.

buckeyefan78

12-05-2006, 04:07 PM

Alex

12-05-2006, 04:16 PM

I'd give it to Laurinaitis. His play early on in the season was amazing. Anyway, Connor is better than Poz IMO.

I agree on both accounts. I don't know if Laurinaitis deserves it more than Poz but considering OSU is 12-0 and PSU is 8-4, I'd put my money on Little Animal.

But what Poz brought back to Penn State can't be measured with awards. He brought leadership and toughness that was largely non-existant since '99-'04. He's perhaps the best LB to ever play at Linebacker U.

Connor's time to shine will be next season. He's been playing in Poz's shadow for three years, now he'll finally get to be the leader of the defense. I think the difference between Connor and Poz is that while Poz is very consistent, Connor has a killer instinct that Poz really doesn't have. Connor will be a beast next season and, IMO, will be a lot tougher to replace heading into '08 than Poz will heading into '07.

buckeyefan78

12-05-2006, 04:20 PM

I agree on both accounts. I don't know if Laurinaitis deserves it more than Poz but considering OSU is 12-0 and PSU is 8-4, I'd put my money on Little Animal.

But what Poz brought back to Penn State can't be measured with awards. He brought leadership and toughness that was largely non-existant since '99-'04. He's perhaps the best LB to ever play at Linebacker U.

Connor's time to shine will be next season. He's been playing in Poz's shadow for three years, now he'll finally get to be the leader of the defense. I think the difference between Connor and Poz is that while Poz is very consistent, Connor has a killer instinct that Poz really doesn't have. Connor will be a beast next season and, IMO, will be a lot tougher to replace heading into '08 than Poz will heading into '07.

EXACTLY on the killer instinct thing. It just seems like Connor is in on more big plays which indicates that willingness to get after it. I'm not calling Poz a stat sheet filler by any means but on big plays...just seems like Connor is the one who finds his way to the ball.

Alex

12-05-2006, 04:31 PM

EXACTLY on the killer instinct thing. It just seems like Connor is in on more big plays which indicates that willingness to get after it. I'm not calling Poz a stat sheet filler by any means but on big plays...just seems like Connor is the one who finds his way to the ball.

Penn State's other starting linebacker, Sean Lee, seems like a hybrid of the two. He's always making tackles, like Poz, but has the killer instinct like Connor. No one really knows about him since he's playing behind two elite LB's but he stepped into the starting line up, rather unexpectedly, and performed well from day one. Look for him to get some notoriety next season with Poz out of the picture.

Bottom line is that Linebacker U. is back and stacked for the forseeable future. The top-ranked linebackers in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania have all pledged to the Nittany Lions in this year's recruiting class. :thumbup: