Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons put on quite the show at Penn State’s pro day as he looks to secure a first-round draft pick in the upcoming NFL draft. But Parsons didn’t manage to make the cut in ESPN’s ranking of the top 80 college football defenders of the 2000s. But another former Nittany Lions linebacker did.
Paul Posluszny, who played for Penn State from 2003 through 2006 was ranked 30th overall in the ESPN list of the top 80 college football defenders of the 2000s, as ranked by the venerable Bill Connelly.
It should come as no surprise Posluszny not only made this list, but appeared in the top half of it as well. Posluszny was a keystone of Penn State’s defense at a time when the program appeared to drag itself out of a down spell early in the century. Posluszny was a consensus All-American in 2005 and 2006, anchoring a defense that played its way to a Big Ten championship in 2005.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7u6Y4EuigI
Posluszny also was named the recipient of the Chuck Bednarik Award, presented by the Maxwell Football Club to college football’s top defensive player. He remains one of only two players to ever win the award twice (also in doing so in back-to-back seasons). Northwestern head coach and former Wildcats linebacker Pat Fitzgerald won the first two Bednarik Awards presented by the Maxwell Football Club in 1995 and 1996. Penn State remains the only school to have a Bednarik Award winner in three consecutive seasons, thanks to Dan Connor winning the award in 2007 after Poisluszny’s back-to-back award-winning seasons.
Posluszny also won the Dick Butkus Award in 2005 as the nation’s top linebacker, and he earned second-team All-Big Ten in 2004 on his rise to national prominence.
Posluszny was a second-round draft pick of the Buffalo Bills in 2007, and he eventually went on to be named a Pro Bowl player with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2013. Posluszny retired from the NFL in 2018 after 11 seasons in the league.
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