Most loved / hated PSU players of all time?

Most loved…

Paul Poz, MRob, DWill, Sean Lee…why do I love these guys…they are true role models….work their ass off….and overcome obstacles…they are leaders and great men first and great football players second.

Most hated…and hate is not a strong enough word…

1. QB from 2006-2007…always ran and hid when there was a problem or a play needed to be made…opposite of the four guys above.

I’m surprsied no one’s done a “Most loved/hated BSD members” list.

Most loved: Graham Zug

LOVED:
Michael Robinson — for the hit on that safety against Minnesota, for taking a hit himself to complete a comeback against Northwestern, and for being the only guy Zack Mills could reliably throw to.

POZ — for being the only guy that I can ever remember in ANY football game that I was dead certain would make the tackle that needed to be made.

Kerry Collins, Bobby Engram, & Ki-Jana Carter — for giving me the best freshman year I could have hoped for.

O.J. McDuffie — because of his unmitigated awesomeness.

DISLIKE:
QB14 — for never EVER checking down to a second or third receiving option.

Chris Bell — for trying to STAB someone. Not a quality I like for in a teammate.

Austin Scott — for acting (to me) like he would be given the starting RB role without even trying, and that he didn’t need to obey teams rules, curfew, etc… or even work on holding onto the damn ball.

I was a senior in college in ’99 and I will never forget that Minnesota game. Derrick Fox effectively allowed two consecutive hail mary completions.

In response to above, I liked Rashard Casey. He certainly was not blessed with a group of WR.

No Cappy? The only Heisman winner, and a real life role model

My Dad loved him, which is why I do I guess. That, and the speech

Loved: 31, Aaron Collins, Brian Gelzheiser, MRob, AQ, Tony Hunt, Mike Haynes (ignoring his NFL career), Brad Scioli, Phil Yeboah-Kodie, Wittman/Milne

Hated: Joe Nastasi, Chris Eberle, Mike Cerimele, Chris McKelvy, Derrick Fox (great call), John Sacca, Joe Jurevicius (grown to respect him in NFL)

I too am surprised to see Casey here – I am more used to fans thinking he should have played more

Robbie “Personally responsible for losing 5 games” Gould
Calvin “Let every returnable ball bounce to the 3 yard line” Lowry

Mills
Norwood
Rubin

Hated:
Pat Devlin

…most loved? Michael Robinson and Poz. Two guys who stuck with it despite years of losing and heartbreak to deliver one of the best seasons in PSU history.

Gelz makes most loved…#16 was a stud

Loved (in no particular order):

Enis… that dude was a stud
DWill
Lavar / Courtney Brown
Derrick Wake (Oddball pick, but the guy played his heart out on special teams and punt blocking)
Kim Herring
Chafie Fields
John Shaw, because I’m wearing his number as we speak and when I got to meet him (we had a class together) he said I was the only one who ever had his jersey number (it was my middle school football number)
Anthony Adams
Tony Stewart
…
Is this too many?
…
L J
Tony Hunt
… and he hasn’t made it yet, but I have a feeling that Stupar is going to be a favorite of mine.

Dislike:
Y’know, I’ve never really disliked a Penn State player

…was a complete jerk off the field. Really disliked that dude.

Loved – Conlan, Mills, Poz, MRob, Hunt, Norwood, DWill.

any small number of players loved, but the top of that list would include:

M-Rob: Still convinced if we had one more play in that 2005 Michigan game that he would have found a way to win.
Poz,Bobby,Gerald Cadogan, Josh Gaines: Cried when he got the offer to play for PSU. I would rather have a whole team of guys like Gaines than all the five-star recruits looking to make it to the pros.

Redeem team (moved from hated to loved)
Mills: Couldn’t help but be happy for the guy on his senior day against MSU.
Calvin Lowry: The punt returns. But, it wasn’t his fault they kept putting him in. Also, he sucked, right? But for some reason no one was good enough to take his spot, even briefly in the NFL.
Jay Pa: Blamed him for all of the struggles in the dark years. Too bad he’s a great guy, who is proving that he’s got it.
Dan Connor: (Maybe) Some of us had a feeling at the end of 2004 that big things were going to happen. When Connor got in trouble, I was furious. Didn’t he know what was riding on that season? I wanted him gone. Still can’t forgive him fully.

Dislike:
Kranchick: Selfishly wanted to be a WR and refused to learn to block. A million bucks says real TE Mike Lukac catches the first pass at the end of that Ohio State game in 2003. We move the ball, Kimble doesn’t have to make it from 60+. Just saying.
Shino Prater: Don’t even know who he is, but my god was my dad pissed at him through a good deal of my childhood.
QB14: Tee only D-1 college football player that I would replace with MYSELF on Fourth-and-3 and game. The anti-MROB
Brendan Paretta: Played because he was… Italian? Tried to lose countless games on his own. Worse blocker than Golden, bad at everything, handed the ball to a Northwestern DB once and instructed him to score a TD.

guy was all heart, and I believe he broke his neck his junior season and came back to play again for his senior year. Awesome. My most loved is definitely M-Rob, Mills, Posluszny, and Aaron Harris. Also loved Michael Haynes and Tamba Hali. Way too many to list them all out, though.

M-Rob. The way the kid stuck through it and succeeded is amazing. It took until his 4th game of his senior year but man, he was something. Apparently he is a captain with the 49ers, not surprised.
Bruce Branch. I remember very little about him, but My first PSU jersey was #1 and he had it at the time.
Also, POZ. One of the few guys I actually got to meet, was incredibly nice. He was an OK tackler too.
Lenny Moore. He played too long ago for any of us to enjoy him, but everything I read about him makes me wish I could have seen him play. One of the most underrated(In terms of being talked about) NFL players ever. Of course, also he is the namessake of BSD resident KOT. Guy was lightning in cleats.

Adam Taliaferro & Cappy(For the inspiration), Chafie Fields(for the catch), Pete Giftopolous(For the Pick), D-Will(For bring his stars to PSU) and many others all hold special places in my memory.

I harbor no ill-will towards any players unless they caused trouble and shame off the field. If they were simply bad players, but not bad people I can at least respect them because It is incredibly difficult to do what they do.

Do I have to wait half a year for that? Even if we don’t live up to expectations this year, the guy has his heart in the right place and I can’t imagine a situation occurring that will make me like him less.

Gotta also go with DWill, Poz, Connor, Lee (also not going to wait half a year for that), Norwood, and Shipley(he was a great center AND leader). And retro-actively since I didn’t get into sports until I came to PSU, M-Rob, Mills, Lavar, Collins (bonus points for him since I’m a Titan’s fan), Carter, Engram, Conlan, and Ham. Interesting to me to note that that is 4 QB’s, 6 Linebackers (no surprise there), 3WR’s, 1RB (a little surprise there) and 1 Center.

On the fence for loved: Royster, who’ll probably get there soon, Bruno who’d be there if not for the stupid racial comment he made before the awesome Japanese comment, Maybin who would be there had he stayed at PSU, I don’t hold it against him that he left, but it would have shown me a love for PSU had he turned down being a possible top 10 draft pick for us, Bowman for obvious reasons, and ReadingRambler who’d be there if he played for PSU’s football team.

Dislike: QB14 (If he had put a little more effort into bettering himself he wouldn’t be here) Chris Bell,and Phil Taylor (he tackled me during that 1000+ person snowball fight at East Halls in 2006, though that’s not what I dislike him),

Loved: Tony Hunt and Brandon Short
Hated Eddie Drummond

whether most people are referring to players they love/hate as a psu representative based on what they have seen on the field and tv, or that they knew the player personally enough to make a judgement.

as for the former:
liked-mrob, norwood (yoshi), tamba hali, lavar, dwill, shipley, mills, conlan,

disliked-
gino capone, quarless, bell

as for the latter, i just can’t bring myself to really hate any player. even morelli. i always just feel sorry for them that they could not succeed in spite of themselves when given the oppurtunity of a lifetime.

that, and i never really had a bad experience with any of them outside of a few individuals who always tried to break down the door of sharkies to get beer at 230.

Loved:

John Shaffer – I met him at the Tavern about a ten days before the Fiesta Bowl. He was with his whole family, I suppose they were out for his graduation dinner. His Mother saw that I recognized John, but I was afraid to go over and talk to him. She waived me over, and I got to spend about ten minutes talking to him. He asked me who I thought would win (duh) and he gave me the coolest autograph ever, which I still have. I was ten years old, and I’ll remember that for my entire life.

Hated:

The 1999 Penn State Defense: Overrated. Gutless. Punks. Never in my memory has a defense ever believed it’s own hype so completely. Which is bad enough, but the way they folded at the end of that season was terrible. The last Penn State team to lose on senior day, the only Penn State team to lose on senior day in the last 20 years….Yeah, it was those guys. We’ve had 3-9 teams that I am more proud of than that 10 win team. Good riddence.

Loved:

Kyle Brady
Mike Archie
John Whitman
Brian Milne
Mac Morrison
The entire Collins Family (esp Both ACs)
Jurevicius
AQ Shipley
Jeff Hartings
Gregg Garrity
Michael Zordich
Ethan Kilme
Jerry Sandusky as a coach – I still miss him.

I’m not going to put out a hate list. I think you guys pretty well covered that.

I gotta go LaVar, BranDon Snow, Omar Easy, Tim Shaw, Craig Fayak, Mike Archie and Terry Killens

also Titcus Pettigrew and Curtis Enis for obvious reasons (The Coxson, Kuntz of a generation passed.)

Loved:
The entire 2005 team, to include
Michael Robinson – Heart, leadership, guts. Clearly the MVP of 2005 for PSU.
Paul Posluszny – Restored LBU.
Tony Hunt – For making RB33 look like a punk, and for his demolition of Tennessee in 2006.
Derrick Williams – He could have gone anywhere else. He chose Penn State, to help resurrect the team. He did.
Deon Butler – We are legends!
Jordan Norwood – Probably the best “possession” receiver in PSU history.
Tamba Hali – There was a series against Wisconsin in ’05 that was just incredible… he singlehandedly made Wisconsin go 3-and-out.
Scott Paxson – Did anyone have a more under-the-radar season than him in 2005? He recovered the fumble against Ohio State and should have had two safeties in the Orange Bowl)
Matt Rice – An animal who kept the team focused, one game at a time.

Also loved:
Zack Mills – Got a bum rap playing with a bum shoulder and a bum group of WRs in ‘03 and ’04.
LJ Jr. – Don’t care what people think about his “attitude”. Without that attitude, LJ doesn’t go for 2K, and our 2002 season isn’t nearly as good.
Michael Haynes
Anthony Adams
LaVar Arrington
Chafie Fields
Aaron Harris
The 1994 offense
John Shaffer
Pete Giftoupoulos
Shane Conlan

Strongly Disliked:
Derek Fox
Eric McCoo
Tony Johnson
Maurice Humphries
Chris Bell
RB33
QB14
LaVon Chisley
Derek Wake (aka Cameron Wake)
Calvin Lowry (only whenever he returned punts)
Ricky Upton
Curtis Enis (for his dealings with an agent prior to the 97 Citrus Bowl)
Joe Jurevicius (for getting kicked off the team prior to the 97 Citrus Bowl)

Man did I dislike Derek Fox. Almost as much as Clint Holes (in the Defense), the only noticable ommision from an awesome list.

Likes: Ray Roundtree – my friend and I made up a song about him. We were young. Trey Bauer. Don’t think Tamba Hali was mentioned enough. And Flyod Wedderburn lived on my floor freshman summer. He overhung all four sides of the ill-suited bed that was in his dorm room.

PS – Hi. I’ve been reading this board since last season, thought it was time to sign up. Love it. Keep up the good work.

LaVar, Posluszny, M-Rob and D-Will

Never really like K. Collins (cuz I met him as a student), Kevin Thompson, LJ Jr. or QB14 (obviously).

Calvin Lowry and Robbie Gould. I met very few players personally – these two may have been very good guys on a personal level.

Maybe Lowry shouldn’t have been a return man – maybe he was put in a situation above his head becasue option B would have been much worse. I’ll retract him from my bad list.

The few guys I did spend some time around, Rudy Glocker, Tyoka Jackson, and Shelly Hammonds were great guys.

I’m thinking of guys that you missed so much when PSU took the field next season with out them. Guys that you just loved watching. Obviously Lavar is an easy answer, but my two are M-Rob and Tony Hunt. I’ve never seen anything like Robinson’s 2005 season, he just willed that team to win at every moment. There was the 4th and 7ish sweep to keep last drive alive in Michigan, which would have been so memorable if we had one that game. I remember thinking to myself, what do you do here? M-Rob sweep, but they’re going to know it’s coming… It doesn’t matter, he still gets it. Or just knowing the game was over against Minn. after the third successful option sweep to start the game. From what people have said, it’s the exact same way Texas fans think Vince Young.

Tony Hunt, I know he’s not the best RB we’ll ever have, he had no top end speed, but he was so much fun to watch. When he made contact he would just keep driving and spinning and not go down. It was like some one was mashing the buttons in Madden. Just killing the clock off-left-tackle like 10 times in a row, and the other team just completely unable to stop him. The only Penn State trash talk I’ve ever heard that I liked after the Outback Bowl. I just loved watching him run.

Mills isn’t a love, but cmon, hate??? Look who he was throwing to. Can you imagine what he would have done if he had the same receivers as #14?

Love! Love! Love!:
Old School
Curt Warner, and I can’t even believe I’m the first to say so.
Walker Lee Ashley: such a cool name and this SI article is pure gold. I can remember reading that article like it was yesterday
Dennis Onkotz: I was too young to remember watching his games (I did tho), but for more than 30 years his name glared out at me from the record books—as the alltime leading tackler at Linebacker Freakin U!
Matt Millen & Bruce Clark: tell me these dudes don’t scream Classic PSU:

Old, Old School, mostly from stories from my mom
Lenny Moore, Franco Harris, Lydell Mitchell (love that name; if we get lucky enough to have our own baby, think I can get away with naming him Lydell? What if it’s a girl?), Steve Smear (duh!) and Mike Reid (see sig)

Newer School
Aaron Harrs: good call STL
DWheels: first one into the Revival Tent
Puz:

Those Whose Play Was Liked Not a Whole Lot by Me
Derek Fox is easily at the top of this list—that dude just killed me game after game with boneheadedness. Why couldn’t he have gone to OSU and his brother have come here?
Echoed on Shamar Finney & Geno Capone. I know it’s fresh, but Josh Hull’s game fits right in there. Hard workers all of em. Just too much play that stands out at LBU for the wrong reasons.

Good post dude!

Love me some Blair Thomas because he was the first name I ever remember hearing when I was a kid and went to my first Penn State game. It was freezing out and I was like 8 years old. I spent the entire game with my head under a blanket to keep me warm, and all I remember is hearing the name Blair Thomas over and over.

Because he is my first ever memory of Penn State, Blair Thomas makes my most-loved list.

I think everyone’s covered the bad, so I’ll just go with my favorite guys (I can’t really in fairness comment on the classic guys because I wasn’t alive to see them, so I’ll stick to the modern guys).

Poz- incredible leader, the reason I insisted on getting a 31 jersey for white out games (It’s also a bonus that Conlan wore the same #)

DWill- For showing so much faith in a down program. It seems un-Penn State like to single out a single player for turning the tides, but he (and I guess King as well) was the beacon of hope that brought about the end of the Dark Years, and we’ll forever be in his debt for his selflessness (a great PSU quality) in being the #1 HS recruit and picking a down program.

Tony Hunt- An absolute beast. Last drive of the Outback Bowl (also my first bowl game!) was quintessential Tony, and his post-game interview reflected what it means to be a quintessential PSU player.

MRob- A really friendly guy when I met him at the Paterno Luncheon before last year’s BW game, and for leading the team out of the worst period in our team’s history.

DC17- His story isn’t over yet, but simply for the fact that he had to overcome so many obstacles (grades, growing up in a rough town, and getting noticed by big programs) to get where he is now. He busted his ass both in weight training, and his development as a player, and also a leader on the team. And in his first season as a starter, all that work he put in to achieve his success on the field was honored by being named the first team all B10 QB last year. His attitude, dedication, and heart is what every PSU player should strive to achieve.

any love for Matt Hahn yet.