When Micah Parsons opted out of Penn State’s 2020 season it was on the heels of one of the best individual bowl performances in program history and in the opening stages of a cautiously optimistic Heisman campaign. Parsons was en route to becoming, if not already, must-see TV. He was explosive, impressive, powerful and able to change the game all on his own in more ways than one.
There are a lot of things the COVID-19 pandemic took from the world. Micah Parsons’ final – and likely best – season of college football was one of them. No matter how exceptionally good he has become in the NFL, there will always be the games he could have played in college, and the curiosity of what he might have done in that final year.
Enter Penn State sophomore linebacker Abdul Carter.
While it seems only fair to Carter to avoid the perpetual comparisons he and Parsons are unavoidably similar. They both do things with ease having perfected the art that all great defensive players possess with an ability to seemingly appear out of nowhere to make the play exactly when it’s needed. Carter is here, and then he is there.
On the stat sheet Carter is already ahead of Parsons in some areas at this point in their careers. Carter picked up 6.5 sacks in 2022 and 10.5 tackles for a loss, both leaps ahead of where Parsons was heading into his sophomore year. Then again the now Dallas Cowboy was part of 82 tackles his freshman season while Carter has “only” taken part in 56. There are a lot of reasons for these differences which might slightly devalue the numerical comparisons, but the overarching comparison is unavoidable – Abdul Carter sure does remind you of Micah Parsons.
Which is exciting. For Penn State there is the practical utility of having one of the best linebackers in the nation. For fans of simply watching good players play, there’s the excitement that comes with watching Carter do his job. While the comparisons between Parsons and Carter might not be entirely fair to Carter as he looks to be a fully realized version of himself and not someone else, Carter does seem poised to give everyone a makeup for the lost year of Micah Parsons and a chance to watch a truly elite linebacker find himself and find an even higher level of play. And barring injury or another opt-out friendly pandemic, Carter should be poised to do it all yet again in 2024.
“When you have a player like Abdul who has a certain skill set or things that he does very well, you want to put him in those positions to make plays as often as possible,” Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said earlier this month “… I’ve mentioned this before, Adbul just does simple things and it will look extraordinary to the outside [world]. I was showing the guys you know, the shot that Michael Jordan made to beat the Utah Jazz wasn’t half court, it was 19 foot shot. I mean, everybody in this room with probably with enough shots would at least make one of them.”
“So it’s not about putting the cape on and doing insane things. When you’re extremely talented and you play simple you make simple things look extraordinary, and that to me is that has been what we’re trying to Abdul to understand as he goes into year two is expectations. When people sort of [say] ‘oh my gosh, I’ve got to hit a grand slam no one on base’ and that’s not necessarily the case.”
So buckle up, here comes somewhere in the ballpark is 26 more games to watch one No. 11 make you forget about another No. 11.
“You don’t live by a standard. You set the standard,” Parsons once said. Advice for Carter to live by as those games unfold.
