It did not take long for Penn State transfer addition Arnold Ebiketie to leave his mark on the Penn State defensive line. Now, with the regular season in the books, Ebiketie’s terrific season has been deemed worthy of inclusion on an end-of-the-year watch list for the Ted Hendriks Award.
On Monday, the Ted Hendricks Foundation released its list of the 30 players in the final running for the Ted Hendriks Award, which is awarded to the nation’s top defensive end. Criteria for the award include on-field performance, winning attitude, leadership abilities, contributions to school and community and academic success.
Ebiketie joined Penn State after transferring from Temple, where he played for four seasons with the Owls. This season saw Ebiketie record 14.5 sacks and 17.0 tackles for loss (which led the Big Ten).
The Ted Hendriks Award was first presented in 2002 to Arizona State’s Terrell Suggs. Carl Nassib is the only Penn State player to have won the award, meaning Ebiketie is hoping to become the second winner of the award in program history.
There was no 2020 recipient of the award. Chase Young of Ohio State was the most recent winner of the award, in 2019.
The final votes for the award will be gathered the week of December 6, and this year’s winner will be announced on December 9.
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