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From returning starter, to Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, to All-American, to first round draft pick of the Miami Dolphins – it’s been a pretty good year for former Nittany Lions defensive tackle Jared Odrick. After the last 12 months, he was an obvious choice for BWI’s Male Athlete of the Year.

The following is an interview with the former Nittany Lion in its entirety.

Was it Penn State from the beginning for you when you were initially recruited?

I mean, I visited probably about eight schools, but had 60-65 offers. I visited Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Penn State as my five official visits.

It seemed like you were at a bunch of home games a bunch your junior and senior years.

Yeah, I did, I did. I was interested early, but at the same time, I never shied away from an invite to Penn State to go see a game.

By the time that you got to Penn State, LJ said he knew you would be something special because of your work ethic and size. Where did the work ethic come from and did it develop and change through your career at Penn State?

I think it just developed from all the people who helped me along the way in my career and in my life. I always had people around me that were always hard workers. My high school coach and basketball coaches were kind of people who instilled that in me on the sports side. And, my mother too. Everybody I think contributed to the way I looked at sports and how I treated it in my life. But I think once I got to Penn State… leading up to Penn State, after I committed and even before I committed, I was just really focused on becoming bigger, stronger, faster. That’s all you really could do before you got there. Then when I got there, I think it was just my competitiveness took over. You get there and you got guys that are on your team, but just as much as they’re on your team, you’re competing against them to be some of the freshmen that play, and eventually start.

What was that initial competition like for you? Did you sort of scout the other guys that came in with your class? There was a lot of talent already on the team, but you played early. Did you think you could make your mark and stand out among the crowd?

Yeah, I guess you could say that. Playing early was definitely big for me, getting game experience and stuff like that. It was me, Phil Taylor, Maurice Evans, A.J., Andrew Quarless… I think we all kind of tried to set ourselves to higher standards, but at the same time it was competition, not even with just the freshmen. It was competition with the upperclassmen that were already there. It was just something that, we wanted to come in, we wanted to play, we wanted to make an impact.

Was there any learning curve about how to work hard and set a standard? Were there any players that you picked things up on for how to practice and play hard?

Yeah, definitely. Poz was one of those guys that works really hard and kind of made a lasting impression on me. We’re running sprints, and in between the sprints, he’s doing push-ups and sit-ups. So there’s no way I’m going to be able to do anything but breathe in between reps. He worked really hard and it paid off for him, obviously. He’s a product of his own hard work. Somebody like that, and Tim Shaw worked so hard, Josh Gaines also. Josh always pushed himself in the weight room and in conditioning. Just seeing guys like that in front of me I guess set a good pace.

What was coach Johnson’s influence on that? He talked about how unique it is to find players who play hard all the time, whether it is in practice or in a game. He said you exemplified that. Did you always have that mindset that you would go full-out all the time?

I guess so. I think my freshman year I really had to to keep up and to show coach Johnson that I could play. I mean, if you’re not playing full speed as a freshman, then you’re there for the wrong reasons and you’re doing the wrong thing. That’s almost a given. I think coach Johnson, he did always stress that and some people understood it and some people didn’t. But, I think once I started to do it, I think that’s when my game really elevated, because things just start to slow down. If you’re playing full-go all the time, you’re just trying to process things as fast as you can, but they’re going to slow down for you eventually. I think that’s one thing that really helped me out in my game was trying to practice at a game speed.

When did things come together for you? Obviously you had the position change, but at what point did you feel like you had it down?

My junior year. I felt like, I know what I’m doing now. Let’s get after it. My sophomore year, I think I was kind of feeling my way through defensive tackle. My freshman year, I was feeling my way through just football in general. But, I think my junior year, it really came together for me. I knew some things that I had to do and get done each game and what I had to do each week to prepare for Saturday.

When you were a freshman, the switch from defensive end over to tackle, was that a difficult transition?

It wasn’t really tough. I wouldn’t even really call it a process because I thought I had a really good spring coming from D-end to D-tackle and I thought I did well. Coach Johnson just told me, All I want you to do is just get off the ball. Off the snap of the ball, just get off the ball, play fast, play upfield. I wasn’t the strongest my sophomore year. But I was probably right around 288-290 that spring. He just really wanted me to get off the ball. I played up against Rich Ohrnberger that whole spring and I think that really prepared me for that season. Then, obviously I got hurt halfway through the season and didn’t get to finish.

What was your relationship with him like?

I knew it was a unique relationship from when he first came to visit my school as a junior. It was kind of always funny because whenever he came, all of the students would always just gawk at him because they knew that he was somebody important. He would come in with a nice suit and a little strut and people would come running into my classroom and be like, ‘That guy with the really nice suit is here again.’ I would go down and see him in my coach’s office and, he had a plan laid out for me like no other coach did. I think that’s one thing that intrigued me was that he had a plan laid out for me for four years. Not just the first year or the first summer. It was for four years. He said, ‘I want you to come in, play as a freshman, eventually start – whether it was as a freshman or next year or next spring. He said, You’re going to be an all-conference player. You’re going to be first-team Big Ten. You’re going to be All-American. And we want you to be the defensive player of the year.’ It’s kind of funny that all of those things happened.

Were you actively thinking about those goals and mentally checking off what you had already accomplished and still needed to accomplish?

When we met in high school, he kept that same packet that he had shown to me, and that plan that he had laid out for me. We’d have multiple meeting times throughout the year. In the spring, we’d have a couple of meeting times, scheduled meeting times, and he’d say, ‘Hey, let’s meet up, let’s look at our plan.’ And, we’d sit down and look at it. He would say, ‘Hey, you’ve accomplished this so far. What’s the next step? What’s the next step?’ So, each time we met, we’d always look for the next step. The way we attacked it and the way we went after it, we made very lucrative goals, but at the same time, they were very attainable if you work hard.

Looking back, did any of those achievements stand out above the others?

When he showed me that list as a senior in high school saying that you’re going to be a collegiate All-American and the defensive player of the year, I was like, ‘Yeah right, this guy is kind of pulling my chain. But, at least he sees something in me. I really think this guy believes in me.’ That was one of the biggest things. But, just sitting there as a senior in high school and seeing my four-year plan, it was like these were some pretty lofty goals. I was like, I don’t know. But, just taking it one step at a time, it wasn’t like I was a senior in high school and was going to be an All-American next year. My first goal was, ‘Hey, I want to get on the field and play as hard as I can and learn as much as I can and contribute as much as I can.’ If it works out to where I become whatever my freshman year, then it works out, but I want to work as hard as I can, and whatever comes of it, then that’ll cover it.

You had already accomplished a lot by the end of your junior season. Can you take me through what the process was like for you deciding whether or not to return for your final year and if there was any real doubt in your mind that you would come back?

It really wasn’t that big of a decision to be honest with you. I think the media kind of ran off with it a little bit, especially because of Aaron leaving. I think it kind of played into the media’s attention toward my decision. I asked for a little bit of feedback, I got it, and made a decision off that. It wasn’t really anything that I was worrying about or not getting any sleep over or anything like that. I just said, Hey, where do I stand? I want to know where I stand and if I had a pretty good idea of where I stood and it sounded good enough to go then I would have went, but it didn’t, and it wasn’t enough for me to say, Hey, I think I want to skip out on another year with my best friends and I think I want to skip out on another chance to win the Big Ten or win a national title. It wasn’t enough for any of that. I wanted to stay and play another season.

It seemed like you took the Penn State experience particularly seriously. Did that have anything to do with coming back as well? You seemed to really enjoy the whole Penn State experience.

Yeah, I guess you could say that. I think it’s the people that drew me there. It’s the people, it’s my teammates. The people are what Penn State is. Penn State isn’t some magical place that you get magically drawn to. It’s the people that are there, and I think that’s why people love Penn State. It’s because of people they grew up with or went to school with or shared certain memories with. I have teammates that I came in with that are still there that are still playing and working hard and are still on the team that I want to go back and hang out with. I think it draws you back because of the people that you know that are still affiliated with the program.

So when you did come back for your senior season, obviously there was a lot of hype surrounding you. Every offensive line coach was gameplanning against you. Was it a challenge to know and understand that it was going to be a harder road for your final year?

I guess there were some teams that had schemed and after games, coach told me they had done certain things like that. But, I don’t know how to explain it, I felt like I had a whole lot better senior year than I did my junior year and I think that’s just my preparation, my team’s preparation, my defensive line and my coaches and my whole team. I did a lot of studying my junior year of just some game film of myself, but I think I did it smarter my senior year. I think it was just experience. I think it helped me out a lot. I’m salivating at the thought of if I was there for a fifth year. It’s like the same thing when you’re going through high school and then you go through one year of college and you look back like, ‘Man, I would kill it if I was back in high school.’ Like, I’m on a totally different level. Now coming here and seeing some of the competition and the type of players that are here, and just knowing what I know now, you always say that in hindsight, but I just think experience helps you out so much, and I think that’s what helped me my senior year no matter who gameplanned for me.

What would coach Johnson do to press your buttons? Is there anything specific about you that gives you a little extra motivation?

I’m a competitive person. I think I motivate myself pretty well, but coach Johnson knows how to press people’s buttons and he does it in different ways all the time. I remember him saying some things my freshman year that I was like, ‘Man, I suck. I’m a terrible player. I used to be good. I miss those days.’ But, it was all to motivate me. I think some of the things he did, he gave us all a reality check. It was just, ‘Hey, you guys think you’re the only team working. You guys think this.’ We’d be on the practice field and he’d just point over to the stadium and be like, ‘You guys think you’re ready to play in that big old stadium over there starting on whatever date. Go ahead over there and embarrass yourself but I’m going to put people on the field that will work hard and know their stuff.’ I just think a lot of what he did was to put a lot of people that who had success before us and presented it to us, whether it was film or whether it was stories or them actually coming back to the campus. I think that’s one thing that really put things into perspective for me and a lot of guys on the D-line.

Coach Johnson said you are hyper competitive but can also appreciate other great players, like with what happened with Suh getting so much attention last year. Is that an accurate assessment?

Yeah, definitely. It was great to see a D-lineman getting that kind of respect, but at the same time, it was like, ‘Well, I want to get to that level. I want to be that guy that people fear.’ It’s being a natural competitor. It’s being like, ‘Yeah, I want to be the best. I want to be on that level.’ And so, I think it was just me trying to keep up and stay competitive with Suh, McCoy, or whoever else was in my class at D-tackle.

Was that frustrating for you? Suh sort of took off with one game and the media machine took hold and ran with it. It’s not that you got lost in the shuffle, but he got so much attention toward the end.

I think it was more motivating than anything. It was definitely more motivating. I played opposite McCoy since coming out of high school. Same with Suh. It didn’t upset me whatsoever. I kind of, not enjoyed it, but there wasn’t nearly as much attention or pressure to be that guy that nobody really expected to be the guy of the class. And so, I think I kind of outperformed some people’s expectations.

What’s next for you? What are you hoping to get out of this first year in the league?

I just want to learn as much as possible. I just want to be as productive as possible. That’s all this league is about is production. If you’re not producing, then you’re not on the field. So, I just want to be as productive as possible at my position and establish myself in the league as a great defensive player within a great defense.

What’s different about it? Is there any culture shock involved or has it been a seamless transition for you?

It really hasn’t been that rough of a transition. Of course you’re going to have your frustrations learning different techniques, things that for eight years you were taught to do in a 4-3 defense. In the 3-4, there are a lot of similarities in our defense that Penn State had. But at the same time, there are a lot of differences. So, I mean, our defense we’re playing here isn’t just a straight up and down, two-gap kind of thing. There is two-gapping within our defense, but at the same time, there’s a lot of attacking, put your butt up in the air, pass rushing, and there’s a lot of things that coach Nolan lets not just the defense but the D-line do.

What do you think the learning curve will be? Can you be comfortable by the first game or is it something you’ll pick up as you go along?

I think a lot of the learning is already done. OTAs were really the learning part. I think what’s coming up next is really just the physical part and pretty much the technical part. I think most of the learning is done. Most of it is done, not all of it, but learning the defense and learning the technique is done. But, I think doing the technique and letting it play out on the field and producing is what’s left.

I assume you know what your role will be next year. How will you be used?

I’ll be all over. They can see me at multiple positions and I’ve been used in multiple positions so far this summer. I’ll be all over.

Do you like that? You seem to take some pride in being so versatile.

Yeah, definitely. There’s different spots that I can be effective and if that allows more people to get on the field because I can play at another position, I think it allows the defense to do more things when there are more guys on the field that are versatile. I think that’s defined with me sometimes, and yeah, definitely, I’m proud of that.