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PSU duo is shut out again Thursday, December 09, 1999 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
HOUSTON -- When Florida State's sports information director stepped to the podium last night to introduce his school's finalist for the Lombardi Award, which the Houston Rotary Club awards to college football's best defensive lineman, he got a big laugh with his opening line: "I thought I walked into a Penn State team meeting for a while."
To be sure, half of the finalists did wear blue and white. But neither Nittany Lion, not defensive end Courtney Brown nor outside linebacker LaVar Arrington, walked away a winner.
The Lombardi Award, like the Bronco Nagurski award Monday night, went to Virginia Tech defensive end Corey Moore, who has led the undefeated Hokies into the Sugar Bowl, the title game in the Bowl Championship Series.
Moore gave his acceptance speech with his eyes closed and his head bent, and he said, "I wish we could just split this award in four parts and give each guy a piece of it."
What this week seems to be proving, so far, is that it's tough to win postseason defensive awards when your team loses its last three regular-season games and the defense gives up more than 30 points in two of those losses. That, of course, is what happened to Penn State.
"I think it really hurt Courtney," Arrington said. "A three-game skid, and the kind of season they've [Virginia Tech] been having ...it's almost like they're the fan favorites."
Brown didn't see it quite that way. "There's a lot of people playing football, a lot of good football players," he said. "It was hard enough for people to just cut down to four. I feel blessed and honored to be one of the four."
Although he hasn't won either award for which he was a finalist, Brown appears to be blossoming on his awards ceremony tour.
Sure, he's still the guy who doesn't change his facial expression when the other three finalists smile and smiles only when the other finalists are doubled over in laughter. But Penn State assistant coach Larry Johnson, who introduced Penn State's finalists, thinks Brown has said more words in the past three days than he has in his entire four-year career at Penn State.
"At the [Penn State] awards dinner on Sunday, he won several awards and he got up and talked," Johnson said. "Everybody was like, `Wow. He really can talk."'
And Tuesday afternoon, at a Lombardi Awards luncheon emceed by Dallas Cowboys announcer Brad Sham, Brown proved he has a sense of humor. Sham asked Brown to tell the audience something that most people didn't know about him, and Brown answered, "Well, I talk all the time."
Said Johnson, "The whole place was in stitches. I think LaVar's rubbing off on him."
Arrington said before the week started that he didn't expect to win anything.
"I'm hoping for some nice parting gifts."
He said from the beginning that the Lombardi Award should be for Brown, although he figured that Brown would split the other defensive awards with Moore.
The Lombardi Award, which consists of a block of granite (remember, Vince Lombardi first became known as a member of Fordham's legendary line, the Seven Blocks of Granite) attached to a silver pedestal, weighs 40 pounds. The block of pink granite is positioned at an slant the angle of a defensive lineman's stance, and on its base is engraved one word -- discipline. The granite is polished, too, for a specific reason.
It symbolizes a complete player, said Rotary Club president Jack Lord, who -- yes -- was introduced last night with theme music from Hawaii Five-O.
Voters for the award this year had a choice between two Nittany Lions -- Arrington and Brown -- and two Coreys.
Moore, the 6-foot, 225-pound defensive leader of the undefeated Hokies, had 59 tackles, including 27 for loss, which includes 17 sacks. He also scored a safety, forced three fumbles and returned a fumble recovery for a touchdown. Florida State nose guard Corey Simon had a school-record 21 tackles for loss.
Even with such credentials, history was against the Coreys. Five previous times, a school has had two Lombardi finalists. Each time, one of the teammates had won the award. Each time, one of the teammates won the award, including in 1978, when Penn State defensive tackle Bruce Clark defeated Oklahoma's Greg Roberts, UCLA's Jerry Robinson and Penn State teammate Matt Millen.
Penn State hadn't had a finalist since.
But this season it was impossible to ignore Brown, the Nittany Lions' career leader in tackles for loss (70), career sacks (28) and season tackles for loss (29). Or, for that matter, Arrington, who had 72 tackles this season, including 20 for loss, nine sacks, an interception, a forced fumble, two fumble recoveries and two blocked kicks. He, like all linebackers, was eligible for the award because he lines up within five yards of the line of scrimmage.
Which Nittany Lion would he have voted for? Johnson laughed. "That's not a fair question."
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