Penn State's Deion Barnes wants to improve to the point where he can't be blocked

Last Updated on Wednesday, 14 November 2012 14:53 Wednesday, 14 November 2012 12:12

Written by Mark Dent

It's been a great year for Deion Barnes. Of all the young players on Penn State's team, he has been the star of the defense. 

A redshirt freshman, he has 23 tackles, five sacks and nine tackles for loss. He leads Penn State in the latter two categories. 

Those are fine numbers. Barnes has been named freshman of the week in the Big Ten before and could probably qualify for Big Ten Freshman of the Year or the honorable mention All Big Ten team. But that's not enough for Barnes. He has much larger goals for his progress in the coming year. 

"In the offseason," he said, "I have to work harder than I ever did and work with coach Johnson to be at that point where I can’t be blocked anymore."