Penn State’s Top 10 Players of 2018: Full Voting Breakdown

Another year, another top 10 list. As has become BSD tradition, the staff votes on the top 10 players entering the season, and then again looking back on each season.

Each staff member completes their own top 10 list, with the #1 slot being worth 10 points, #2 worth nine points, and so on. After several months of meticulously crunching the numbers on our company abacus, we were finally able to reveal our top 10 earlier in the week. Thanks to all those who followed along with the countdown, and for those curious about the full voting breakdown, check out our full list below:

1. Trace McSorley - 99
2. Yetur Gross-Matos - 86
3. KJ Hamler - 60
4. Shareef Miller - 58
5. Miles Sanders - 52
6. Pat Freiermuth - 50
7. Micah Parsons - 39
8. Amani Oruwariye - 34
9. Kevin Givens - 28
10. Ryan Bates - 14
11. Blake Gillikin - 13
12. Cam Brown - 8
13. Robert Windsor - 7
14. Rafael Checa - 1
    Tariq Castro-Fields - 1

Some interesting takeaways:

-The 15 players who received votes included eight on defense, five on offense, and two specialists.

-Trace McSorley was ranked #1 on nine of 10 ballots.

-Yetur Gross-Matos was the only player outside of McSorley to receive a first place vote.

-Nine of the 15 players receiving votes will return to play for Penn State in 2019

-Four redshirt or true freshman received votes (Hamler, Freiermuth, Parsons and Checa)

-Five players were listed on every ballot (McSorley, Gross-Matos, Hamler, Freiermuth and Oruwariye)

-Cam Brown only appeared on one ballot, but received the third-place spot.

-Ryan Bates was the only member of the offensive line to receive a vote.

Keep an eye out for the preseason top 10 sometime this summer as we look ahead to the 2019 season!