At this point, everybody who follows Penn State football knows Abdul Carter is elite, and that includes opposing coaches.
Tuesday morning, SMU coach Rhett Lashlee was asked— by me— about Carter’s impact.
Even for those who haven’t watched Carter play, the numbers speak for themselves.
He became the first Penn State player in almost a decade to reach double-digit sacks (he has 10 on the dot) and is third in the nation in tackles for loss (20), doing all of it in his first season as a defensive end. Lashlee 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.
WHAT LASHLEE SAID
Abdul Carter would tally two sacks and two tackles-for-loss against Maryland.
Lashlee said Carter is “the best defensive player” he’s faced during his time at SMU based on the film he’s watched.
“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 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.”
‘THE BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER IN THE COUNTRY’
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Unsurprisingly, Penn State DC Tom Allen is on the list of Carter’s fans.
Hours after Lashlee spoke about Carter, Allen did the same.
“I believe he’s the best defensive player in the country,” he said. “He’s proven that each week. This game against SMU is going to be another opportunity for him to do what he does best, which is to disrupt. … Excited for him to play his best football here on Saturday.”
Penn State and SMU are scheduled to play at noon on TNT and HBO Max Saturday.
