Sports

By Derek Levarse dlevarse@timesleader.com
Sports Reporter
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The wait finally ended, but there was still some disappointment mixed in with the relief of getting their names called.

Penn Staters Dan Connor and Justin King discovered where they will be playing football during the second day of the NFL entry draft on Sunday. But the news came along a little later than they would have liked.

Connor was taken by Carolina with the 11th pick of the third round (74th overall) and King went to St. Louis with the second pick of the fourth round (101st overall).

Both players fell more than a full round past where most prognosticators had them ranked.

With Connor, many draft experts considered the linebacker to be an early second-round pick. A few mock drafts even had him going in the late first round.

As it was, five linebackers were taken before Penn State’s all-time leading tackler -- two of whom were projected to be inside linebackers like Connor. Curtis Lofton (Oklahoma) went in the second round to Atlanta (37th overall). Baltimore decided on Tavares Gooden (Miami) with the 71st pick, shortly before Connor went in the third.

Connor joins former PSU teammate and fellow linebacker Tim Shaw in Carolina. Shaw was drafted in the fifth round in 2007 by the Panthers, who also drafted another linebacker, Jon Beason (Miami), with their first-round pick that year.

The main knock on the Strath Haven High School grad was his versatility, as scouts questioned his quickness in coverage, especially against NFL-caliber tailbacks.

As for King, he was projected as a borderline first-day pick who had a shot to be taken in the second round.

But the Pittsburgh native saw his stock drop as 15 cornerbacks were drafted ahead of him. Particularly painful for King -- a first-team all-conference selection in 2007 -- was that two of the corners drafted ahead of him were from the Big Ten. Indiana’s Tracy Porter went 40th overall and Iowa’s Charles Godfrey was selected 67th.

A fast and naturally gifted player, King’s inconsistency and lack of physicality were likely what caused his slip down the draft board.

It wasn’t quite what King had in mind when he left Penn State with a year of eligibility remaining after earning his degree in three years.

“He should have stayed in school for his senior year,” NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock said. “If he stayed back another year and worked on some of these things, he could have been a first-round pick.”

ESPN’s Mel Kiper voiced a similar opinion.

King will now have former Penn State standout corner David Macklin as a teammate to help mentor him with the Rams.

The Nittany Lions had no other players taken in the seven-round draft. Quarterback Anthony Morelli and tailbacks Rodney Kinlaw and Austin Scott could all catch on with teams as free agents in the following weeks.

Notes: Penn State’s two draftees tied for seventh most in the Big Ten. ... Michigan had the most in the conference with six, including first overall pick Jake Long. ... Northwestern was the lone Big Ten school not to have a player drafted. ... In all, 28 players from the conference were selected, with four going in the first round -- Long, Vernon Gholston (Ohio State), Rashard Mendenhall (Illinois) and Dustin Keller (Purdue).