Penn State Football: Yetur Gross-Matos Big Ten Preseason Honoree

Penn State football’s Yetur Gross-Matos was named a 2019 Big Ten preseason honoree Thursday morning ahead of the conference’s media days in Chicago this week.

Gross-Matos’ selection was all but assumed given his 2018 season, the defensive end led the Nittany Lions with eight sacks and 20 tackles-for-loss in the 2019 season, becoming the 11th player in program history to cross the 20-TFL threshold. His best performance came in Penn State’s win against Iowa, in which he totaled four tackles-for-loss and two sacks. 

The Penn State standout joins fellow Big Ten East representatives Ohio State defensive end Chase Young, Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins, and Michigan State stars Joe Bachie and Kenny Willekes. Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor and Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez highlight the West division’s honorees. 

Gross-Matos is the sole Nittany Lion in this year’s group of honorees and Penn State’s first defensive player to be named to the list since defensive tackle Anthony Zettel in 2015.

The preseason honor is the latest bit of national praise for the star defensive end. Gross-Matos earned first-team All Big-Ten honors in 2018 in addition to being ranked the No. 69 player in college football this past week. He was also named to the preseason watch list for the Bednarik Award, which is given annually to the best defensive player in college football.