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Joey Julius shares his story, Marcus Allen earns Big Ten award, Derrek Pitts decommits

Megan Ryan / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 7 years ago

(The last part of my headlined rhymed, how fun.)

It’s Penn State football’s day off, but the team can’t quit generating news, so here’s a bit of a notebook to catch everyone up.

First, Penn State’s redshirt sophomore kicker Joey Julius, known for making big hits on his kickoffs, took to Facebook early Monday morning to share a very personal story of why he was absent for most of this offseason.

The Hummelstown, Pa., native is 5-foot-10, 258 pounds and sought treatment at McCallum Place in St. Louis from May 9 to July 26, where he learned he has a binge-eating disorder. Julius said in his post he credits the Penn State football staff for helping him realize something was wrong and helping him through it. He also offered to be a resource to anyone who might be in the same position he was.

For some lighter news, junior safety Marcus Allen claimed the Big Ten conference’s Co-Defensive Player of the Week honor, sharing it with senior defensive lineman Ifeadi Odenigbo of Northwestern.

Allen, of course, nabbed a career-high 22 tackles, with eight solo stops, in Penn State’s 29-26 overtime victory against Minnesota this past Saturday at Beaver Stadium. It was the most tackles from a Nittany Lion since Paul Posluszny in 2005 and the most from a Big Ten player since Wisconsin’s Mike Taylor’s 22 in 2011. Allen is also just the second Football Bowl Subdivision player this year to record at least 20 tackles.

This was Allen’s first nod for defensive player of the week and the first for Penn State since Anthony Zettel won Sept. 28, 2015.

(Odenigbo made a career-high four sacks and was just the second player in the nation this year to reach that mark.)

And for the bad news for the Nittany Lions, they lost a commitment.

Derrek Pitts, a four-star recruit from South Charleston high school in Charleston, W.V., decommitted from Penn State’s class of 2017 on Monday. The 6-foot-1, 174-pound safety had this to say on Twitter:

Assuming there’s a missing ”to thank” in there. Perhaps he’s looking to stay closer to home at West Virginia? Only time will tell.

As always, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or email to share your question/comments/concerns/hopes/dreams what have you. Thanks for reading.