To celebrate the upcoming new year, and new decade, we’ll be offering a retrospective here at NittanyWhiteOut. Over the next two weeks, we’ll reveal all the members of NittanyWhiteOut’s All-Decade team, comprising of the best Penn Staters from 2000-2009. Don’t agree with our picks? Let your voice be heard in the comments! We continue today with a look back at Penn State’s best centers of the past decade.

We took a little break here at NittanyWhiteOut for the holiday weekend, but we’re back with a vengeance to bring you the rest of our Penn State All-Decade team.  We’ll be releasing our selections for a couple of positions each day from now until New Years Day, and don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of Capital One Bowl Coverage, too.  But now, let’s resume the selection process with a look back at the center position.

Make no bones about it, the center is the leader of the offensive line.  Sure, the left tackle is the one protecting the QBs blind side, the right tackle’s typically a road-grader in the run game, and the guards are usually tasked with shutting down a top defensive tackle, but watch the center before the snap-he’s the one pointing out blitzing linebackers and aligning his comrades along the line to protect the quarterback.  It’s no surprise that every year, centers score highest on the Wonderlic test, as a group, and it takes a smart player, as well as a physically gifted one, to be a center. And with that in mind, our selection for the All-Decade team is an absolute slam dunk.

Allan Quay Shipley (2004-2008), or A.Q., as you know him, not only anchored some excellent lines, but set the bar against which all future Nittany Lions will be measured.  Stefen Wisniewski was named a first-team All-Big Ten selection, but when compared to the sheer dominance of Shipley, Wisniewski was said to have struggled in 2009.  But as for Shipley, the road to excellence and the NFL wasn’t always so easy.  Shipley came to Penn State as a defensive tackle, and was reportedly unhappy with his move to center.  Even if he didn’t want to play the offensive line, it would only be natural to be perturbed by the way he was jerked around, from defense to offense, switching back and forth repeatedly during his first couple seasons.  But by Shipley’s redshirt sophomore season in 2006, he had won a starting job at center and would never look back.  Anchoring a young offense line, Shipley was the only Nittany Lion offensive lineman to start all 13 games.  By his junior season, Shipley started to gain regional and national recognition, especially as Penn State’s offensive line became a more cohesive unit.  Named a first team All-Conference selection and Rimington award finalist, Shipley was named to ESPN’s All-Bowl team following Penn State’s victory over Texas A&M in the Alamo Bowl.  In 2008, while Penn State boasted one of its best offenses in school history, Shipley, too, stood out, finding himself once again a first-team All Big Ten selection, but this time he won the Rimington Trophy as the best center in college football, and was named an All-American, too. Drafted in the 7th round of last April’s NFL Draft by Shipley’s hometown Steelers, A.Q. is now a member of Pittsburgh’s practice squad.

Honorable Mentions: Lance Antolick, Joe Iorio

Releated Posts:

1. The Penn State All-Decade Team: Offensive Tackles
2. The Penn State All-Decade Team: Guards
3. The Penn State All-Decade Team: Cornerbacks
4. The Penn State All-Decade Team: Defensive Tackles
5. The Penn State All-Decade Team: Safety

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