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One interception for a defensive tackle is pretty good. Two is great. Three in a season? Three is, well, that's all-conference worthy. Anthony Zettel picked up his third interception on the year, his second in a game against a team from his home state of Michigan, this week against Sparty, and because of that he's BSD's MVP for this week.
In addition to the sole turnover for the Penn State defense, Zettel logged the most tackles for loss of any PSU defender (3.0, for 10 yards), and got the only sack of Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook. He didn't have the most tackles for the Nittany Lions (that honor goes to, unsurprisingly, the vaunted Mike Hull), but he still had five--pretty outstanding for a disruptive big man in the middle.
Plus, that doesn't take into account the number of non-called holds and double and triple teams he drew throughout the game; like he's been for offensive coordinators all year, Zettel was a necessary focus of Dave Warner's game plan, and even so his name was called enough to be a focus.
One more year of Anthony Zettel in the middle? Thank you based Shoop.
Honorable Mentions
Linebacker Mike Hull: 13 tackles (7 solo), and 1.5 tackles for loss. And that's an off day for the senior middle linebacker? Basically, yes. We'll miss him a lot next year, both on the field and off.
The tight ends: Less obvious key drops this week, and a combined eight catches for 86 yards, may not seem like much, but it feels like a massive improvement. With how our offense has looked at many points this year, I'll take what I can get.