The Obligatory PSU Quarter Century Team (2000-2024) | Penn State 1st Team Defense

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WELCOME TO THE OBLIGATORY PSU QUARTER CENTURY TEAM…celebrating the best Penn State football players from the past 25 years (2000-2024). In this episode, host Chris Buchignani and panelist Kevin Horne unveil the 1st Team Defense — a standout collection of former All-Americans, award winners, and high NFL Draft picks who made a substantial impact on the field during their time in Happy Valley.

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we did with the second teamers Kev we’re going to start at the top position at Penn State because it’s linebacker you no doubt and if you know anything about Penn State football you know who is right here in the top spot here he is born from the football cradle of Western Pennsylvania Paul Puzz Lesny arrived in Happy Valley at a time when the program badly needed a hero in everything he accomplished on the field Huz helped restore the luster to Penn State’s program and in the classroom he embodied the vision of Paterno’s grand experiment donning the number 31 to honor his legendary predecessor Shane Conlin jopa’s first junior captain since the 1960s upheld the standard and then some only adding to the unparalleled legacy of linebacker U how good is Paul Pasnney the best right like I’m so glad I got to experience what when people think of Penn State football like what it is but we got this Polish kid from Butler who decided to come to Penn State when we sucked he stuck around he played on that 2004 team that led that goal line in Indiana which we think sort of cat catapulted the program for the next few years and he sticks around for 2005 and has a great year and that team will be talked about in this town in reverent tones till the end of time and Paul Lesnney was the biggest part of that college Hall of Famer as of last year yes you know Jack Ham still talks about Paul Lesnney is the best linebacker in Penn State history and so I’m taking Jack’s forget Mike the Mailman i’m taking Jack Ham’s word on that one when you have no less an authority than Jack Ham saying you are the best at a position that has produced so many all-ameans so many NFL stars so many college hall of famers that is I mean remarkable and he is the not to be corny about the grand experiment like the guy’s like a banking exec now like I think he works for Deote he is a consultant he like wears suits to work every day still even though he doesn’t need to because he made hund00 million dollars or whatever just like a remarkable guy remarkable in every way in quintessential Penn State you feel like a guy like Paul Poslesny could have played here in the in the 50s in the 1910s like and that’s what makes it special that like I’m so glad because they don’t exist anymore like we’re going to talk about some really good players and some really good players in the Franklin and O’Brien eras and they are really good that doesn’t take away from them but you think about like a Paul Poses and like they could you could have put them anywhere in Penn State history before they played and they would have fit right in and so I feel grateful that at the end there of turn like I got to experience that mentality that dude is the essence of linebacker U and yeah I do think it was meaningful that he was part of that ’05 team that really brought the program back I the first junior captain under Joe Pno since the late 1960s in ’05 good stuff and this whole trio all part of that era amazing so let’s go on to the next starring for the Nitney Lions at a time when it seemed coach Ron Vanderindon was stamping out all-American linebackers on an assembly line Sha Lee was yet another link in the chain at Penn State’s signature position injured for the 2008 Big 10 Championship season Lee seemed almost as valuable on the sideline coaching his teammates as he was terrorizing opposing offenses when healthy again it’s wild that you roll right out of Paul Lesnie and into Shaun Lee we just use the same bio right they’re like the same person in essence right shaun Lee Shawn Lee was like a childhood hero of mine he was I think he was a couple years after Lesni right when I was getting in the meat of things you know they’re very similar players and man I work with his uncle who’s a lawyer obviously his his um grandfather was a big federal judge out of Pittsburgh he’s an upper St clair Whipio guy right just like the prototype of a Penn State player you know i I cried when he tore his ACL i think it was uh in the spring practice before 2009 before before 2008 and that to me also illustrates the embarrassment of riches Penn State had at the linebacker position during that era because Shawn Lee tears his ACL going into what was going to be a Big 10 championship season and what do they do they replace him with a walk-on named Josh Hall who ends up playing like four or five years in the NFL like that’s how much talent we had at the position at that time remarkable well I mean him the lasting image of him I have is him and Daryl Clark holding hands walking out of the tunnel you know as captains that year even though he didn’t play even though he’s had a torn ACL he was still named captain yeah which says all you need to know about Shawn Lee right uh quintessential Penn State or just like Lesnie it was like they were they were a prototype of each other like one after the other well it’s funny that you say that too because Nitty Nation was really introduced to Shaun Lee when he was pressed into playing the part of Paul Puzzlesnney in the ‘ 06 Orange Bowl after that 05 season puzz you know after being a superstar that season we just talked about everything he meant to that team tears his ACL in the Orange Bowl against Florida State and in comes true freshman Sha Lee and he doesn’t skip a beat i’ll tell you a funny story about Sha Lee do you know what game was his official visit his senior year when he was being recruited tell me Chris it was the six to4 loss to Iowa and he still came here phenomenal he looked at that team and said “If they can get any semblance of an offense they’re going to be practically unbeatable but I want to be part of that defense.” And so if you ever look back on that six to four game and and you can’t find anything good out of it there was one thing shaun Lee he also looked like he was 12 until he was about 20 which was hilarious for just a cold stone cold killer on the field love Sha Lee and speaking of stone cold killers let’s go to our next linebacker right now rounding out our trio of first team linebackers is Dan Connor Penn State’s all-time leader in tackles like Puzz Lesny an eventual all-American and Benic award winner who chose Penn State despite onfield struggles connor joined Puzz and Lee on the 2005 Big 10 title team and even among such elite company distinguished himself cementing a place of distinction in the record books as linebacker U for my money Kev the most instinctive player I have seen not just at that position but maybe at any position for Penn State it was almost like he just had a six sense and knew where the ball was going before it was snapped which is how you become the all-time leading tackler right i mean he didn’t hit as hard at least from watching it as Paul or Shawn did but he was always on the ball which is how you get the most tackles in program history universally loved right and is another one of those guys that James has collected to come back yeah you can’t hear enough good things coming out of the program today about coach Dan Connor just like back in the day everyone just talked him up so much but what a great guy he was just don’t ask Joe Sarah may rest in peace but um deep cuts i’m sorry it’s still obligatory but I love Dan Carter i love I love him i love him i love him again same same kind of thing paul Sean and Dan back to back how lucky we to have those guys overlapping back to back to back we’ll never have that again i crazy crazy i don’t think I ever saw a guy take a bad angle in his career but when you talk about the fact that we probably earned that nickname linebacker you dating back to the 1970s I don’t think the program before or since and and as you said probably pretty unlikely we ever see it had a run of talent at that spot like they did in the mid 2000s like all three of these guys were on the field together on the 2006 defense yeah god what a year we should have been better that year given given what we had but I’m another He’s another guy that I didn’t want to say it but I knew you would thank you you’re You’re welcome i’ve not seen Dan Connor downtown as much as I’ve seen Michael Mauy that’s another guy that shouldn’t pay for a beer in this town and um God that you know James for everything you want to say about James like the way he’s brought back so many Letterman into the program like if I walk through Lash Building today it’s like all my childhood heroes and then like Trace and and all these like awesome it’s to have those all those guys in the same building is awesome i feel better at night knowing that the program is still being run by th that kind of character yes sir love Dan Connor little tease we might get to another one before we’re done here with the first team for sure on the obligatory Penn State quarter century team we’re at Antifragile Brewing Company and we will be right back with the first team defensive line first team belong in that conversation so let’s get to him right now with his non-stop motor indomitable will to win and pension for vicious quarterback hits Tomba Ali was the perfect weapon to compliment a contingent of fellow senior defensive stars on the 2005 conference champs hi set the tone for his teammates in practice then backed it up on the field consistently showing off an instinct for game-changing plays one season at defensive end was more than enough for Abdul Carter in 2024 already a standout at linebacker since his freshman season Carter moved closer to the line of scrimmage for his final campaign and quickly emerged as one of the most terrifying edge rushers in the nation earning this spot with his toughness killer instinct and commitment to winning troy Smith upside down it’s all I got to say hanging in my living room that’s all I had written down too i mean that image will go down as one of the most important moments in Penn State history just like that game will and um that was Tombbo man and it you know the the perfect capture of him right on his head right it’s not just like a regular tackle and it really wasn’t wasn’t even on his head for that long it was just that frame legend Tom Bahali when I think about again we talked with a lot of these guys who they were off the field and what they did on the field and the combination that gets them onto this team i you know I I talked to Jay Pno about the famous story of Joe Reed and Hamlet to the team before the ‘ 04 Indiana game and that four down goal line stand that they say sort of turned everything around and he made a really good point about who Tombbo was as a person and what that says about Penn State’s football program at that time that here’s a guy who as a kid escapes war in his native Liberia comes to the states looking for a better life gets a chance to get a college education because he can play football here at Penn State and something in what Joe said that day connected with him and I talked to Tom about it too he said I’m not sure I understood half of it but I got the gist i understood it and then that he translated that into what he did on the field in ’05 that he turned into a very successful professional career it’s everything you want in the sport of college football and everything you want Penn State football to stand for yeah what else needs to be said man i mean the the program put out a video of him probably four or five years ago at this point when he came back into the building just a big smile on his face with his kids that’s what it’s all about so I’m going to cop to something as much as we love Tomahali and as much as we love that ’05 team I actually voted Abdul Carter ahead of him because when I think about and it’s it’s not recency bias i all those guys I mentioned before the break everybody who made this team first and second team and and and worthy candidates who didn’t quite make the cut in a short amount of time as an edge rusher abdul was as good as I’ve seen anybody do it at Penn State since Courtney Brown probably yeah and again I don’t remember who I voted for like I said on the last episode I’ve long forgotten so I I can’t Well I told you don’t don’t go back and look yeah um The reason we talk so reverentially about Sha Lee and Paul plus Leslie Dan Connor Tom Bali is because they remind us of sort of like the old school like Penn State values or or even just college football values in general right like you knew that those guys loved Penn State as much as you did and they loved the fans just like you loved them and it was like reciprocated back and forth right if there’s one thing that’s being lost in college football because of NIL and the portal which this episode’s not about but if there’s one thing being lost it’s it’s like that sort of mutual love between team and your classmates and team and alumni is being lost because you have guys coming in because they’re getting paid the most they’ll stay a couple years they’ll use your resources and then they just leave on a dime and then they won’t play in your bowl game right like that’s that’s the way it’s go so so you’re not getting those the elite level talent like Abdul Carter that’s not you’re not getting that reciprocal love of alma mater anymore but the reason that we love Abdul Carter is because he reminded us that can still exist right that can still exist i think part of it is because he became so close to Lamar Arrington but great point you know when he was going through the playoff run and posting like the Darth Vader stuff and he you know he tweaked his he tweaked his arm this guy’s he was the number three pick in the NFL draft tweaked his arm in the playoffs he didn’t have to play the rest of that he didn’t have to and we would have been told by the media that we should uh not only accept it but celebrate him for not playing anymore and what did he do he went and he and he worked every day to get it in a condition where he could at least take the field and he and he had one like the best playoff games that we could have ever hoped for and um you could just tell he loved Penn State he loved playing on that team that he was a a good dude and uh and like of the old school mentality we’re like I’m doing this for these guys not for myself entirely but for these guys too right that pack the fans um so that’s why I love Abdul Carter always will and uh uh he’s he’s he’s a dying breed but just don’t don’t call him if you need a toe on your car way to finish up on brand good job i couldn’t have said it any better myself from start to finish let’s go to the defensive tackles next the 2009 Big 10 defensive player of the year Jared Oddrich boasted a special combination of speed skill and big playability that made him a disruptive presence in the middle for Penn State’s great defenses of the late 2000s including the 2008 Big 10 Championship team yet another protege of Larry Johnson senior to make this team big Jimmy Kennedy was a dominating force through thick and thin for Penn State’s defense kennedy’s distinguished career in blue and white began a decadel long run of success at his position and even still he stands alone among the very best at Penn State over the last 25 years jared I will say before I talk about Jimmy Kennedy the one play that sticks in my mind is homecoming 2008 we’re playing Michigan we got a long and I mean a long losing streak to those bastards nine losses over 11 years and he gets a safety it’s pretty much game over from there these are two of the most dominant college defensive tackles of the last 25 years not just at Penn State but anywhere yeah Audrey was my era right i mean I wasn’t a student yet but I’ve still gone to the games and he just accumulated sacks and tackles like he’s like a silent assassin and he did it quietly which is so surprising because now he’s like an actor he was just in like a movie with Sylvester Stallone and he rides like motor races cars or something i don’t know like yeah he’s on Entourage at one point I think like a Renaissance man i didn’t see that coming but fond memories of him for sure you want to feel old though Chris jimmy Kennedy’s 45 years old i that’s perfectly fine you know in in fact Jimmy 45 is the new 35 buddy and what I will say about him is that an era when Penn State had some murderers on the defensive line he was good enough to start as a freshman and really never relinquished that role to the folks who are too young to remember the name Jimmy Kennedy he was an absolute terror at defensive tackle for the Nitney Lions so in general man I I I think wisdom of crowds I think the voters got the majority if not all of this team right at every position but for sure these two defensive tackle spots last 25 years I can’t rank anybody over Audrey and Jimmy Kennedy yeah and Jimmy Kennedy hates JP Morgan as much as I do beautiful and on that note we’re going to hop to a little break here and when we come back we’re going to talk about some of my all-time favorite Nitney Lions in the defensive second secondary with Horn we are wrapping up the first team defense on the obligatory Penn State quarter century team and we are talking about the defensive secondary and we talked about it a little bit on the last show kev maybe not the depth of NFL caliber talent in the PNO era but certainly some top end playmakers we’re going to talk about one uh as we get into the quarterback group here but uh really I I cannot praise enough the great job James Franklin and his staff have done attracting good talent and then developing it in the secondary okay Nate Power that was for you buddy um who’s the first person Chris let’s find out right now joey Porter Jr arrived in Happy Valley with the pressure of generational expectations and managed to escape the long shadow cast by his famous Pittsburgh Steeler father by establishing himself as one of the top lockdown corners in the Big 10 consistently taking away half the field for even the top passing offenses Penn State faced throughout his career bringing leadership intensity and focus 2005 Tri Captain Alan Zamitis was an intimidating presence in the defensive backfield one of several members of this team who helped restore the glory of Old State in the Big 10 title campaign of ’05 no matter the team’s fortunes AZ was ever ready with a game-changing big play that gave his guys a fighting chance which captures the essence of one of the Blue and White’s greatest [Music] warriors i’m going to start out with the very best az is the best I have seen do it in a Penn State uniform at that spot what a story right like near fatal car accident uh rehabbed comes back he’s coming back from winter break back to State College and uh then went on to lead that defense in his senior year in 2005 again a season that we talked about as legend forever and uh and now back here again in Happy Valley made it his home az still walking around like that’s reassuring reassuring to see Allan Zamitis in State College and I just want to say to all the youngans out there if you’re watching this if you don’t know the name if you only recognize him as a member of the coaching staff YouTube search Allen Zamitus Penn State that dude was a stone cold killer when he was wearing blue and white and it was way before the ’05 season when he was a team captain and a big part of the turnaround of this program whether the team was winning or losing you were counting on AZ to make big plays he was one of the guys that believed right played for some awful teams and he’s one of the guys in the locker room in 2004 like “We’re we’re this close we’re this close we’re this close stick together.” And uh he was right he was right and now he’s back awesome great he deserves this spot maybe my favorite offense or defense on this entire team joey Porter i know you’re going to have some thoughts i will say this nobody wanted to throw at that guy two years as a starting quarterback at Penn State you did not hear his name very often and that’s because opposing quarterbacks feared him and opposing offensive coordinators game planned around him that’s why he’s in the top two here and it’s also you didn’t hear his name because he only had one interceptions in three years of starting but that’s also another reason who um can you name the interception you probably can you know I probably should be able to but I can’t go ahead indiana 2021 okay michael Pennix Jr heisman finalist his only interception in three years as a starter at Penn State so not a bad one to have right no look I don’t want I mean I didn’t vote for him i I I don’t vote for players who quit their team uh before the Rose Bowl so I’m not into that noise and uh we’ll leave it at that lest I say more mean things but yeah no respect for anyone who doesn’t play in the Rose Bowl don’t care about your money you make it anyway and uh he’s that’s it yeah thanks for coming to Penn State skipping the Rose Bowl don’t love it but career-wise probably right where he belongs let’s talk about the safeties the emotional core of back-to-back 11 win teams that captured a conference title and delivered Penn State from its posts sanctioned purgatory marcus Allen was the straw that stirred the drink on the field and in the locker room the four-year Letterman filled up the stat sheet during games and then dominated timelines with his postgame live streams capturing the spirit of a unique era in program history [Music] like our second team safety Gier Brown Jaquan Brisker followed the well-worn path from Lacawana College to Happy Valley and almost immediately established himself as a leader on the team and among its best players on either side of the ball his coverage range vision and anticipation set him up to make one gamechanging play after another even as his reckless abandon made him a fearsome hitter the perfect combination of traits for our final first team safety a lot of love from Marcus Allen that guy took the number one spot at safety with a bullet it’s like Don Larson for the Yankees right like the perfect game good pitcher but everyone remembers the perfect game and Grant Haley will score live forever right the most famous pence play in Penn State history potentially uh no one’s made more money off of one play than James Franklin has than that play off of Marcus Allen’s right hand i don’t think one game has occurred at Beaver Stadium without that play being put on the scoreboard at least five times since it happened and it’ll that that is going to continue forever I think until we beat them again which means it’s going to continue forever so um love that guy uh you know didn’t have the the pro career that he wanted but he’ll always be remembered for that right hand when the moment when needed the most yeah dude i’ve been check in the NFL for a long time and I you you look at the stats a a four-year contributor up there in career numbers all over the board at his position and honestly when I think about Marcus Allen I think about two things i think about the videos from the locker room in the 2016 and 2017 season and I think about a true freshman safety press pressed into service in the 2014 Ohio State game coming out and just playing gang busters and that set the tone for the rest of his career not surprising to me at all between career on the field and and and just the relationship between the fan base and the player that he takes the top spot and Brisker man just like Jier Brown a Lacawana kid who comes to Penn State and makes the absolute most of the opportunity really one of the best playmakers we’ve had back there ever as far as I’m concerned yeah i mean what a great story right gateway High School a crappy high school in Pittsburgh couldn’t get the grades to get into Penn State no offense to Justin King of course yeah right love you Justin uh couldn’t get into Penn State or or Terry Smith i’m sorry go ahead you wouldn’t send your kid to Gayway High School Chris i I would not uh go Little Lions okay I’m done with all that but from there could have went to like Toledo or some Max schools like no I want to play in the big leagues i want to play in the big leagues goes to Lacawana for the year gets a bunch of offers picked us over like Alabama a bunch of other teams and came here and just had like a a really nice career i mean I wish he deserved to be on one of those teams outside of those like awful co years right and he he never quite got there i don’t think he minds he’s making a ton of money in the NFL right now yeah but I I really wish we could have had him for at least one of those years when we were out of that mess i no ma one of those players we talking about AZ earlier no matter what was going on on the field with the team you could count on him to make plays for you i think many many Penn Stator will never forget him sealing that 2021 season opener at Wisconsin with that pick in the end zone that to me encapsulates what he brought to Penn State football and Kev that is our first team wow on the quarter century team defense there it is legends very scientific only the best people answered the survey you’re too modest a pleasure man it was good time thanks everybody for going through this with us we are going to unveil the first team offense next week like always from Antifragile Brewing Company here in downtown State College and one more reminder Hopp Valley Brewers Festival coming back to Penn State July 19th get your tickets right now and we’ll see you there until then take care of yourselves and each other we are [Music]