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Joey Porter Jr. captures national honor for Week 1 outing vs. Purdue

Paul Harvey

By Paul Harvey

Published:

Joey Porter Jr. had a tall task for the Penn State defense in Week 1. Fortunately, Porter and the Nittany Lions made enough plays to come out on top on the road against Purdue.

Going up against Purdue, the Penn State defense expected Aidan O’Connell and the Boilermakers to throw it around the field quite a bit. That came to fruition with O’Connell attempting 58 passes and receiver Charlie Jones posting career-high numbers in catches (12) and yards (153).

However, those numbers do not tell the full impact of the defense. The Nittany Lion defense held Purdue’s offense to just 3 touchdowns and a 50% completion rate.

Porter was a key piece of the secondary in that game. Despite drawing coverage against Jones consistently, Porter came up with 3 pass breakups in the box score and 8 solo stops.

For his efforts, Porter was named the Bednarik Award National Defensive Player of the Week.

We’ll see what Porter and the defense can do for an encore when facing Ohio this week.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.