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 defensive ends of the past decade.

Some schools rely on complicated blitz schemes to get pressure on the quarterback. Penn State is not one of those schools.  With  a defense that rarely sends more than the 4 down linemen, the onus lies on the defensive ends, mainly, to pick up sacks and hurry the quarterback.  And typically, those Nittany Lions have been up to the task.  Penn State defensive ends usually rank among the Big Ten leaders in sacks, and a number have been named All-Americans.  Picking two from the past decade is especially hard, considering the exceptional careers that a number of Penn State ends had, and to separate those we’ve selected for the All-Decade team from those who were merely first team All-Conference performers, and even All-Americans was not an easy task.  In the end, though, these two stood out even among the best.

Tamba Hali (2001-2005) had to overcome incredible odds to come to Penn State, fleeing a war-torn Liberia when he was just 10 years old to come to the United States, leaving his mother and family to join his father.  Coming to Penn State as a high school All-American, and as one of the top defensive line prospects in the country, Hali struggled to live up to the advance billing during his first freshman season.  Playing in all 12 games, Hali managed just 10 tackles, 1 for a loss, during the disappointing 2001 campaign.  When Penn State experienced a resurgence in 2002, Hali did as well, earning a starting job and performed admirably, accumulating 53 tackles, 6 for a loss, and picked up a single sack.  Hali improved in his junior season, racking up 51 tackles but 12 for a loss and 3 sacks, tying for the team lead in each category.  Hali even intercepted his first career pass, and found himself on the second team All-conference.  However, it was in his senior season that Hali truly blossomed, upping his tackle total to 65, while picking up 17 for a loss and pacing the Big Ten with 11 sacks, none larger than the strip sack of Troy Smith that helped Penn State seal it’s biggest win in years, over Ohio State.  Named an All-American and a finalist for the Nagurski Award, given to the top defensive player in the NCAA, Hali was the Senior Bowl MVP and found himself a first round draft selection of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Michael Haynes (1998-2002) had almost as unlikely a path to Penn State as did Hali.  Born to military parents who had immigrated to the United States from Jamaica and Grenada, Haynes never touched a football until his freshman year of high school, and that was in Panama, which isn’t exactly known as a hotbed for recruits.  When his parents were reassigned to New Jersey, Haynes got his first chance to play organized football and excelled from the get-go, earning the attention of college scouts from his second game on.  However, it was at fullback that Haynes first came to Penn State, and after practicing there during his redshirt season, Haynes was then switched to defensive end, where he made the coaching staff look like Nostradamuses.  In his freshman season, Haynes saw little playing time, but still managed 6 tackles and a sack, improving on those numbers as a sophomore, when he found himself a more permanent member of the defensive end rotation.  Haynes accumulated 31 tackles, 7 for a loss, with 6 sacks as a pass-rush specialist, and it seemed that he was destined to do great things.  However, the rest of the conference seemed to catch up with Haynes, who found himself double-teamed on virtually every play during his junior year, and though he posted 41 tackles, 11 for a loss, Haynes managed just 4 sacks on the season.  But in his senior year, Haynes, like Hali, burst onto the national scene, finding himself at the center of the defense during the Nittany Lions’ remarkable turnaround in 2002.  Haynes racked up 80 tackles, an astonishing 23 of which for a loss, to go along with 15 sacks, each matching or setting a Penn State record.  The Big Ten defensive player of the year, Haynes was a consensus All-American and first round draft pick of the Chicago Bears in 2003, though Haynes quickly found himself out of the NFL due to injuries.

Honorable Mention: Maurice Evans, Aaron Maybin, Matthew Rice

Releated Posts:

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

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