EVANSTON, Ill. -- The underrated defensive tackle walked into the cramped visiting media room and immediately requested a place to sit. Stefen Wisniewski saved him a purple chair near the exit, and Jared Odrick, now buried in a tight corner, placed his game gloves on his lap.
Days earlier, his coach threw his name out there as a player who doesn't get enough credit, a player who gets overlooked on a roster filled with bigger names and bigger personalities.
Jared Odrick? The all-everything run-stuffer? Underrated?
"Nah, not at all," Odrick would say. "I just wanna play my role within this defense and if that's making plays or just taking up blocks, whatever it is, that's just really what I wanna do. If my role is underappreciated and some people think that, then they probably don't know football. ... No. I don't feel underappreciated."
See, Odrick's not underrated. Can't be. The man said so himself.
He had just put the finishing touches on Penn State's 34-13 win over Northwestern. He had just recorded a season-high five solo tackles. He sacked Dan Persa for a 10-yard loss in the third quarter, and he blocked a field goal in the second quarter, becoming the first Nittany Lion to block a field goal since Jared Odrick did in the 2007 opener against Florida International.
That's six sacks on the season for an interior linemen. That was the only big special teams play Penn State had been on the right side of all season.
Wait a minute ...
Odrick joked with reporters Saturday about comments he made last week after the Michigan game, comments that followed him throughout the week.
"I said I feel like a crazed dog, and nobody cut me a break all week," he joked. "I just got it all around campus. 'Crazed dog. Crazed dog.' "
He gets recognized on campus -- and not just as another mammoth football player. No, students on campus read his comments and put a face to them. What other lineman is identified so easily?
"Felt good, felt good," Odrick said of his preparation for the Wildcats. "Didn't feel like any animals, I didn't feel like any animals."
But he was so determined all week. How could he not attempt to one-up his comments Saturday with only mediocre Northwestern in Penn State's way?
"Jared's a big time player," defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said. "I've been saying that all year. I think he's the best three-technique in the country."
Best in the country. There you go. You can't get overlooked as the best in the country. Right?
And what about the defense giving up another first-half touchdown? And 13 points? To Northwestern?
" 'They're trying to trick us. They're trying to trick us,' " Odrick recalled telling defensive line coach Larry Johnson Sr. in the first half. "I was just saying that just because it was a different type of setting."
But it had to be tempting to look ahead to Ohio State ...
"Nah it wasn't tough at all," Odrick said. "We knew it was gonna be a tough test out here."
OK, I guess we should take his word for it. I mean, he is the team leader in sacks. And that field goal he blocked was in the second quarter, when the rest of his defensive teammates were late to show.
Wait -- you mean to tell me this guy isn't even one of a dozen semifinalists for the Rotary Lombardi Award, given to the nation's best lineman?
And there's not one but five linebackers on the list?
We give up, Joe. You win.
Again.
