UNIVERSITY PARK — Brandon Smith didn’t realize he was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week on Monday until one of the Penn State linebacker’s classmates congratulated him. And even then, it took a second to register.
“I’m like, ‘What award?’ ” Smith recounted over Zoom on Wednesday afternoon. “He was like, ‘Oh, Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’ ”
From there, though, Smith said his phone was blowing up and then his dad called him to celebrate the honor.
“It was just great,” Smith said.
Smith earned the award after he recorded a career-high 10 tackles (six solo), a tackle for loss and a pass breakup in Penn State’s 28-20 win over Auburn last weekend. But despite the accolades that have come with Smith’s early-season performance, he is not resting on his laurels.
“There’s always room for improvement as far as my game,” Smith said. “I’m really not one to completely praise myself as far as the things that I do or the things that I will really excel at. I’m probably one of my biggest critics, and I constantly look at what I need to work on and what I need to really just (improve) on. So every aspect of my game I can improve on in some way, and that’s what I’ll continue to do.”
Smith entered the 2021 season as one of the key players on the defense for No. 6 Penn State. The former five-star recruit was moving to the “Will” linebacker spot, which meant he would spend more time near the line of scrimmage in the box, and he would be more involved on an everydown basis.
Smith is tied for sixth in the Big Ten at 8.3 tackles per game this season, and he also has two tackles for loss to his credit. Overall, the Penn State defense has been a stingy group this season, and it ranks 10th nationally in red-zone defense and 17th nationally in scoring defense (14.3 points per game).
The Nittany Lions have had a knack for getting off the field in big spots this season.
“It’s nothing but just heart and determination,” Smith said. “That’s all it is, really. It’s been instilled in the team for many, many years before us, and that’s just basically what we hold our hat to. There’s been multiple times people would tell me, like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know y’all was going to make that stop.’ But we knew we were going to make it.”
The Penn State defense is a confident group, and there’s talent at every level of it, from PJ Mustipher and Arnold Ebiketie up front; to Smith, Ellis Brooks and Curtis Jacobs at linebacker; to Jaquan Brisker, Joey Porter Jr. and plenty more in the secondary.
The Nittany Lions could have one of the better units nationally, and that’s something the rest of the Big Ten schedule — there are four games remaining against ranked opponents — will bear out.
Smith, though, isn’t thinking about where Penn State fits in the national stage. After all, he didn’t even know where he stacked up personally in the conference after the weekend’s games. He is a true adherent of coach James Franklin’s “1-0” mentality, and he believes that will get the Nittany Lions to where they want to be come December and January.
“Really, just day-in and day-out, getting better and being able to look back at the film and say we’ve done what we needed to do. There’s many aspects of the game that determine whether or not we’re going to be a national championship team or on a national stage or whatever like that. We don’t talk about national championship. We talk about the game that we have to play that next weekend. For the most part, we just know that as long as we look at the film and say we’re getting better, that’s all we need to worry about.”
