He played college football for Penn State University and earned consensus All-American honors.
[1] Bannon was inducted into the Morris Hills (N.J.) Regional District Hall of Fame.
He was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American and the defensive Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the 1972 Cotton Bowl Classic.
Bannon was also named First-team All-America and selected to play in the Hula Bowl the following season.
Bannon was a Hall of Fame Scholar-Athlete with an NCAA Postgraduate scholarship.