PLAYING defensive tackle, especially if you are really good at it, is like a form of tag-team rasslin' in which the other side has two large guys who don't even have to slap palms to alternate turns in the ring. They come at you as an entity while you're in there by yourself, most if not all perform a crowded, sweaty and comparatively thankless job pitting a man alone against waves of double-teams.

It's never fun, but it's often necessary. Just ask Penn State senior Jared Odrick, whose mission is to occupy multiple blockers, make plays whenever he can shed both guys in the different-colored jerseys, and, more often than not, free up paths to the passer or running back so that the Nittany Lions' linebackers and defensive ends can get there first and hog the glory.

"I'm expecting it," the 6-5, 306-pound Odrick said of the attention he is likely to draw from Akron's veteran offensive linemen tomorrow in the season opener for both teams in Beaver Stadium. "It won't be a surprise. It's not the most fun when you know you're going to get double-teamed, but it's part of the game. You have to fight through it to become a better player."

Akron coach J.D. Brookhart isn't revealing every aspect of his game plan, but he has to figure it would be unwise to allow Odrick to go solo on every play against the guy lined up across from him. (That would be Zack Anderson, a 6-4, 310-pound senior who prepped at Interboro High and is in his third season as a starter.) Hey, Odrick against two blockers sometimes seems like an unfair matchup.

"That Odrick kid is an absolutely disruptive player," Brookhart acknowledged.

Odrick was disruptive enough in 2008, when the Lions went 11-2, shared the Big Ten championship with Ohio State and played Southern California in the Rose Bowl, to register 41 total tackles (19 unassisted), 4 1/2 sacks and 9 1/2 tackles for a loss while recovering a fumble. Those numbers might seem comparatively puny when placed alongside those of, say, linebacker Navorro Bowman (106 tackles, 16 1/2 TFLs, four sacks) and defensive end Aaron Maybin (20 TFLs, 12 sacks, three fumbles caused), but then they were among the primary beneficiaries of Odrick's grunt work.

But if you think nobody pays attention to all those in-line collisions involving what retired NFL analyst John Madden reverently refers to as "big uglies," think again. Another season of playing demolition derby will earn Odrick a ticket to the league of Sunday games, almost certainly as a high draft choice, and instant-millionaire status. Once in the pros, he'll drive a nicer car and, oh, yeah, still engage swarms of o-linemen who tip the scales in the 300-pound range.

Odrick, in short, is an inadvertent star-maker who already has helped one teammate hit the NFL jackpot. Maybin - who left school early to enter the draft, where he was the Buffalo Bills' No. 1 choice - almost didn't dress for the 2008 season opener against Coastal Carolina as coach Joe Paterno considered keeping him out until a matter regarding Maybin's class attendance was resolved to JoePa's satisfaction.

An undersized pass rusher (he was listed at 236 pounds in the preseason), Maybin bulked up to 247 and got his chance to crack the lineup when sackmeister Maurice Evans (12 1/2 sacks in 2007) drew an early three-game suspension from Paterno for having been found with marijuana in his apartment and another quick defensive end, Jerome Hayes, suffered a season-ending torn ACL.

But you can't double-team everybody, and the most likely candidate for such concentrated attention is the best defensive tackle, the guy capable of getting enough inside push to single-handedly collapse a pass pocket and clog running lanes. Odrick was most frequently targeted for that designation by opponents. But, in sacrificing his body, he helped Maybin become an All-America in his first and only season as a starter.

Like Maybin, Odrick filed paperwork with the NFL to assess his draft prospects in anticipation of an early departure from Happy Valley. He decided to return because he thinks the Lions can make another run at a national championship and because he realizes there are aspects of his game that still can be improved upon.

"Before each year you just try to add on to what you did the previous year," said Odrick, a first-team All-Big Ten selection in 2008 who is hoping to upgrade to All-America.

So what has Odrick added to his repertoire?

"I'm using my hands better," he said. "I've been watching film of other players in college football, in professional football. You see some things somebody else is doing that might be a little better than what you do. You want to try some of those things out. So you're always learning."

You're always waiting, too. Warding off double-teams so often won't make it easy, but Odrick acknowledged dreaming of the ultimate play, one that would put No. 91 in enough open space so that he finally gets his chance to seize the spotlight.

Asked what that play would involve, Odrick said: "Make the offensive linemen look silly. Sack the quarterback. Strip him of the ball. Run 60 yards into the end zone."

3 things to watch

 

* Penn State's Smurfish wide receivers of recent vintage - 2008 starters Deon Butler, Jordan Norwood and Derrick Williams were, on average, 5-11, 174 - have been replaced by relative behemoths, with listed starters Brett Brackett, Derek Moye and Graham Zug averaging out at 6-4 and 201. Ah, but can all those bigger bodies - and just wait until 6-5, 253-pound tight end Andrew Quarless, who runs like a smaller man, flexes out in four-wide sets - come close to approaching the Smurfs' huge production?

* Junior tailback Evan Royster might not surpass his 2008 total of 1,236 yards, and not just because speedy sophomore Stephfon Green (578 rushing yards last year) figures to have an expanded role. Royster could morph into the sort of all-purpose threat Brian Westbrook is with the Eagles, occasionally lining up as a slot receiver and, for the first time since high school, returning punts. "Brian Westbrook is a pretty good example of what I think I can be like," Royster said. "I'm kind of excited to take on a role like that."