Glendale, Arizona– Penn State football’s best player entered the injury tent during Tuesday’s Fiesta Bowl against Boise State.
It appears Penn State’s All-American defensive end, Abdul Carter, hurt his left arm.
He promptly went to the injury tent and came out, helmet in his hand, and went on the exercise bike.
Carter is a guy Penn State can’t afford to lose. He became the first Penn State player in almost a decade to reach double-digit sacks (he has 11) and leads in the nation in tackles for loss (22), doing all of it in his first season as a defensive end. Earlier this month ahead of PSU’s first playoff game against SMU, Mustangs’ coach Rhett Lashlee said he was impressed with multiple of Carter’s teammates but agrees with everybody else that Penn State’s latest No. 11 is cut from a different cloth.
“The other couple of ends (Dani Dennis-Sutton and Amin Vanover) are really special. If they didn’t have Abdul, we’d be worried about them. We are worried about them. But Abdul is so dominant,” Lashlee said. “He’s physical, he flies around and makes plays, and then they move him to defensive end this year, and he’s got as good a get-off as anybody in college football. There’s a reason he’s a top-five, top-10 pick in the upcoming draft. And on top of it, our tackles have to deal with the noise of trying to hear the snap count, and so there’s a lot of things in his favor that he doesn’t need, on top of the fact that he’s just probably as talented a pass rusher as there is.
“But that’s not all he is. He’s an all-around player, and what really stands out to me is his motor. He plays the game the right way. You got a lot of respect for how hard he plays. He’ll chase down plays from the backside. So just like we got issues with Tyler Warren and a lot of other guys on their offense, we’ve got some we got our work cut out for us on their defensive front and really their overall team speed on defense.”
Nittany Sports Now will provide an update when one is available.
