Oct. 7, 2008
Q. Is it a big adjustment going from playing a finesse team such as Purdue to playing a more physical team such as Wisconsin?
Well, it's a different game, obviously. You expect certain things to be different. It will be a little more smash mouth kind of football, because Wisconsin's a tough football team and prides themselves in their physical toughness.
But, I think you've got to line-up properly, and you've got to tackle and you've got to get to the football.
You may not have quite as many lineup problems ordinarily, but Wisconsin gives you so many different looks with two or three tight ends that move around and jump around that you really don't get any benefit out of that.
So I think it's just a question of mentally. You've got to get ready to get into a tough football game. I don't know. It's football.
Q. Could you give us an update on the health of Mickey Shuler, Andrew Quarless and Jordan Norwood?
Norwood's going to be okay. Quarless and Mickey didn't do much yesterday, but it was only Monday. Today's Tuesday so, I think I'll know more after today. But they both tried to do a couple things (Monday) and I told them just take it easy, don't overdo it. But there's no question Norwood will be okay, unless something happens this week.
Q. Can you give us an update on your health situation? Is your leg feeling any better?
Yeah, it gets a little better. It's up and down. It's one of those things I'm going to have for a while, so I've got to live with it.
We'll see by the end of the week whether I feel I can get on the sidelines or coach upstairs. I don't think it's a big concern for the squad. It's not a big concern for me because with the staff we have, as I've said several times, it isn't a big deal.
But, you know, I'm going to have to live with it for a couple of weeks, maybe more than that. But, hey, that's why I get that big money (laughter).
Q. Can you talk a little bit about the fact that A.J. Wallace started the last game, and he was on earlier talking about the lingering hamstring problems. Is that all that's kept him out of the starting lineup?
We thought we had three corners coming into the season that had experience, could play and everything else. And when A.J. got hurt, we thought A.J. would play a little bit of offense as well as defense just as we started out with him in mind of doing that as kind of a back up guy to Derrick Williams, in case Derrick got banged up or got tired. Then he (Wallace) got the hamstring pull. So that set him back a little bit.
But (Lydell) Sargeant, he (Wallace) and (Tony) Davis, they're three good corners and they all should play, keep them fresh. Nowadays, when you have to be ready for a lot of spread, you need that extra defensive back. We're fortunate that (Drew) Astorino's come through the way he has. That's really given us two extra backs. We've got three inside guys now and three outside guys, which is a big plus for us.
Q. Are you pleased with (Navorro) Bowman handling his responsibilities this year, having to deal with the team and losing his father?
I think so. He's played well. He played Saturday a little banged up, so I think you'd have to say he's done well.
Q. Did you think the spread offense would be as successful so far as it has been? Do you think it can be successful in a place like Camp Randall Stadium?
You guys ask me such hypothetical questions, and I really haven't given much thought to it. I think it can be successful anywhere if you have the right people,in the right places, doing the right things, at the right time, as I've said a thousand times.
I think that would be up to their coaches and their coaching staff as to whether their personnel would be better suited to the spread than it is to what they're doing right now. They're playing awfully good football right now. They lost two tough games that they let slip away from them against two good football teams.
I don't know whether they'd even be interested in talking about the spread. It depends. We've gotten a little bit more of it. Not quite as much as some of these other people because we have a quarterback that can run and some of the things that he can do from the spread are suited for him.
Q. We saw Chaz Powell back there on one of the kickoff returns this past weekend. Should we expect to see more of him in that position? What do you think about what he can do for you?
I would hope we see more and more of Chaz as the season goes on. Chaz has not been a really confident kid, particularly since we've made him a wideout, and he played defense last year. We moved him over to back up (wideout), doing some of the things that Derrick Williams does as we thought we would do with A.J. But when A.J. got hurt, we switched over to Powell.
I think he should be playing more and more. He's potentially a very good football player. He doesn't have quite the little confidence or the concentration he needs, but he is only a redshirt freshman. We're asking him to do a lot of things he's not done before. So I think he'll get better and better as the season goes along, and hopefully we'll get more and more out of him.
Q. What are the advantages and disadvantages to coaching upstairs as opposed to down on the sidelines?
Actually, as far as making a significant contribution to the strategy side and on the tactical side, you're better off upstairs. You can see more. You can get, as long as we have the kind of communications we have now, you can I can talk to everybody on the sideline with the one microphone and the one set of ear phones, and they can all talk to me.
So I think that's an advantage. But the disadvantage is you like to be on the field. You like to be down there, get a feel for what's going on. If somebody's gotten a little bit out of whack and you want to sit them down and say, "come on, forget that last one, let's do this one," and so forth.
But there again, I know you guys say, "here he goes again," but I've got to go back to the fact that we have a coaching staff that's very, very sensitive to all the things that I should be sensitive to. I think they do a good job. If a kid doesn't get in as much or he makes a mistake, they kind of encourage him, bring him along and say, "let's get on with the next one."
So, I don't think there's as much of a disadvantage of being upstairs. If I said to you, "depending on the people downstairs running the show for you," it might be an advantage.
Q. Can you talk about the defensive line and the injuries and suspensions the first half of the season? And do you think Wisconsin's line is going to be their biggest test of the season so far?
I think so. Although, I think Oregon State was a little better football team than I think we thought they were.
I think this will be a real physical test for it (PSU defensive line). No question about it. Wisconsin is a very big, strong, well organized, precise, experienced offensive football team with a dynamic kid running the quarterback spot. He doesn't have the stats that a lot of these other quarterbacks have, but he really is a cocky kid and he plays well. He plays like a coach's kind of quarterback.
Obviously, they've got great backs. At least three great backs and a big, strong fullback about 260 (pounds), I think, who knocks people back. It will be a challenge for the whole defensive football team, not just the down guys.
Q. Daryll Clark earlier today was talking about facing the Wisconsin linebackers. Did you see any of their game against Ohio State over the weekend? And what did you think of how they played and neutralized Terrell Pryor in that game?
I saw the whole game. I've seen the whole game twice, both on television and on tapes because we get the tapes on Sunday night.
I think the Wisconsin linebackers can run. Both 11 (DeAndre Levy) and 2 (Jonathan Casillas), are fine outside guys and the guy inside (Jaevery McFadden) is a tough son of a gun. And I think they did a good job with Pryor. I thought they did a good job in both games. They let Michigan off the hook, and I think they let Ohio State off the hook. I think they had that game in pretty good shape. One or two mistakes here, and Pryor is a kid with a lot of ability who made a couple of tough plays for Ohio State and got them back in the ballgame.
Q. After what's happened with Wisconsin the last couple of weeks, if you wanted to sort of psycho analyze their team, you would say maybe that could be devastating to them or maybe it could be the kind of thing that will have them backs to the wall and come out really fighting. What is your instinct and your experience? What is your guess about what kind of temperature they'll have on Saturday?
You know, I have enough trouble coaching my own team without trying to coach somebody else's team. But, you're not playing some people that are aren't used to winning. You're not playing people that don't have a great tradition, don't have a lot of pride. Certainly as they look at the tapes of the two last two games they're saying to themselves, "Boy, we could have had both of those games. Let's see if we can make up for it."
You're talking about kids that are good football players, representing a great school, great tradition who are well coached. They're going to come out and play. They're going to play their game, I would think. I can't believe anything else.
But it's up to us to go out and play the best we know how to play and see which team is the better team, period. That's why we play.
Q. Some of your players placed the blame for some missed opportunities on third down last Saturday to the poor footing on the field. Is that what you saw?
Poor footing? You can blame it on everything, you know. I was just telling the coaches this morning in the old days we had a guy around here by the name of Frank Patrick who coached the backs. He had played at Pitt, played on some of the great Jock Sutherland teams. Every time a kid slipped he'd say, "Don't cut on the inside foot. Don't cut on the inside foot." I can still hear him yelling it, "Don't cut on the inside foot."
Sometimes young backs get excited and a little too cocky. I don't know whether it was the field, I really don't. Because they (Purdue) didn't slip. I think we were maybe in a hurry to make a cut and (didn't have) good balance, didn't make the cuts. I can't really tell you. You can't tell that from the tapes.
Q. The way that the Badgers use Travis Beckum, who is healthy now, is it almost like another running back? I mean they pound away with Clay and Hill.
Yeah, I think that they'll be close. I think they use Beckum really well. They use his talents. He's a big enough guy that he can cut off blocks on the back side and take an elite block with them. He's probably a 235 pounder, maybe bigger than that. He's got nice hands, can catch the ball well and runs when he catches it. So they're trying to get him the football as a receiver. They want to get him in the football game where he can block and help with their running game, so they can't keep sticking nickels in there on him.
He's not a guy that can go in there and play with a 175 or 180 pound corner on him. He's big, he can run, he can block. He's not a wideout. He's good enough to be a wideout, but they're not playing him as a wideout. They're playing him as a wideout-tight end.
Q. It was two years ago at Wisconsin that you got the broken leg. How much did that individual play kind of change your life from that point until now?
Well, I don't think it's changed my life in a dramatic way. I think it's obviously made it a little more difficult to do some things I used to enjoy doing. But that wasn't the result of the broken leg.
My (left) knee is fine. Dr. Sebastianelli did a great job with that. I don't have any problems with my left leg, it's my right leg. That's because I tried to overdo some things and it was poor judgment on my side without consulting with some people about how much I could put on my right leg.
But that part's changed me a little. I can't walk like I used to walk all the time. I used to love to get up and walk five, six miles. But I can't do that and still go out and go to practice for a couple hours. It just wears down on me. But what I have can be fixed, so we'll work on it.
Q. Question about Evan Royster. When he came here you said you liked the fact that he was a lacrosse player when you were recruiting him. What was most attractive about his lacrosse background?
I never saw him play lacrosse. I couldn't really tell you. But I know what it takes to be a good lacrosse player. He was one of the better lacrosse players in the state of Virginia that has good high school lacrosse, and he may have been the best high school lacrosse player (in Virginia).
But he's bright, and he's an excellent student. I saw some pictures (tape) of him with the football. He's got good hands. Could change directions, had good sight, could see things. He looked like he was going to be a good football player, a good running back. If he hadn't been a good running back, we felt he could have been a good corner.
Q. If he wanted to, would you consider letting him (Evan Royster) play on the Lacrosse team?
It depends. We've had other kids play lacrosse, other kids play baseball, other kids went out for track. I don't see any reason why he couldn't.
It depends on his grades. Depends on where he is depth wise and how far along he is in his development as a football player. There are a lot of things that would go in to it.
Q. I know you've said you've taken week by week off on the sideline. But has this injury affected your thinking about your future after this season?
No, it really hasn't. I don't know. It hasn't, let me just leave it at that. It really hasn't.
Q. There's been a lot of comparisons to this year's squad to '05. Does this year's team remind you of 2005 at all?
Well, I think we've got to play a couple more tough games before you can compare them. (The ) 2005 (team) was three seconds away from playing for all the marbles and won a couple of tough games.
We've got to play a couple more football games before I ...they can do a lot of things that the '05 team could do. But to put them (lifts hands) one's here, and one's here, one's like this, I don't know. I just think we've got a good young squad and we've got to just keep plugging away.
Q. If you could, one more mobility question. You used to put a lot of stock in walking through the team at the beginning of the game. How much do you miss that and how have you been able to replace that somehow, that interaction?
I try to spend a little more time in the locker room with them; walk around in the locker room during the week. I have a motor cart they drive me around in now (at practice). In fact, I can harass them more now than I did when I could walk. I can get there faster. Though, I have a lousy driver. He's going to put me in the wall one of these days (laughter).
But, I miss running out on the field. I would be dishonest if I told you (otherwise). I used to love to get out there and the crowd fired me up and the whole bit. But there are a lot worse things that can happen to you.
Q. It's the mid point of the season. I'm wondering if you can assess the progress of your defense. What areas need to be improved on most? What are you most pleased with?
I think we're playing good, solid defense. You consider the injuries we've had up front, the people we lost for games and people we lost for the season that we could have had, and as I said, some really good prospects that have been hurt. I think they've done very well.
People don't realize, but Purdue played a heck of a game against us. I think they had one penalty. No turnovers. They didn't give us anything easy. Our guys just hung in there and played them tough. One big pass was about the only play they were really out of position on. The kid made a great catch out of it.
So, I think we've played good, solid defense. I really do. I think some of these guys that came back, both (Abe) Koroma and (Maurice) Evans will help us, particularly in a game like this where you've got to have more than a couple of (down) guys at a time in there. I mean, you've got to substitute for them, because they'll wear you down.
So, I think that this (week) will be a challenge. I think most of the teams we've played, we've measured up to and could handle what they were doing. This is a little different. We're in a little different situation this week. It will be interesting to see how we handle it.
Q. Any areas specifically where you'd like to see more improvement?
I'd like to see them fluid everywhere all the time. I wish we could have come up with a couple more interceptions in the first games when we had a shot at it. But we weren't confident enough to go in there and grab the ball and knocked it away. Every once in a while we go around a block, which you've got to expect. But I think we're getting there.
Q. After talking to a lot of your players, it seems like you have a lot of thoughtful, very intelligent guys on this year's team. How does that make your job easier? What is the advantage of having so many guys who are of that caliber on the team?
Well, I think with all the things you said comes a little sense of pride of who they are, what they are, and what they can do with their lives. Football is a very big part of it right now for them, and they want to do well in it. They feel an obligation to their teammates.
So it's easy to sit them down as a group or sit them down individually and talk to them about what they can do with their lives and how they can affect other people because of what they have going for them and how they're coming together and what we can do as a team.
Sometimes you get kids that just don't understand that. They won't buy into it. They're used to being the big shot, the hot shots, they don't want to think about what they've got to do for other people. They're only interested in what's going to happen to them. So it is a lot easier.
I've said this. They've been a good team. It's been a good group of guys to be around. I really have enjoyed this team.
Q. You've been able to change up the offense, and give the defense a different look every week. How much of is that is having trust in the offensive line to be in the right spot and make the right block?
Well, I trust in the offensive line, but I also trust in Bill Kenney and Dick Anderson. I think that Galen (Hall) is the organizer, but those two guys have to go out there and make sure they (O-Line) adjust to different stunts, give them the right drills to handle stunts. Give them enough situations to where they get to recognize what looks they're going to have to block.
They've worked hard. It's a pretty good line right now. I don't think what we have to do, anybody else doesn't have to do. I think every good football team every week has to make some of those adjustments.
Q. A follow up to the offensive line. Wisconsin has five seniors and two juniors in their front seven defensively. What do they do well with their experience?
They come off the ball and knock your jock off. They don't make mistakes, all right?
They're just a good football team. Good football. If the guys you're talking about, the seniors and two juniors, they're all very big, strong guys. They're not flopping around out there. They're not big, strong fat guys. They're big, strong guys who are good athletes and agile. They adjust well. They combo block you well. They're tough to get around on pass protection. They're just they're good.
Q. Will this be your offensive line's toughest test (so far)?
Yeah, I think so. They're going to play eight guys in a box. They're going to stop your run. They've got good corners. That number 17 (Allen Langford) is a heck of a football player. Number 25 (Shane Carter), their safety is really a big time safety. As I said, they've got three good linebackers. So I think it will be a test for us to be able to move the ball.
Q. I know you had a tough trip to Madison two years ago. But is this a trip you enjoy seeing their passion for college football and everything around Madison on game day?
I had a lot of fun going out, didn't enjoy it coming home (in 2006).
I think it's a great place to play a football game. I hate to get down into some of these things that take away from the fact that there are two good football teams that are going to go out.
It sounds cornball when I start to say it. I sometimes back away from it. They're going to go out there before a great stadium, a great crowd, very enthusiastic, very partisan. And I mean, if you don't like that, why do you come to a place like Penn State?
So I think it should be a fun Saturday for a kid 18, 19, 20, 21, going against good football players on national television at night. The whole bit. You dream about those things when you're 14 or 15 years old. So now they have an opportunity, and I think it should be a heck of a night.
Q. When you look at your defensive line, you had essentially three ends in (Aaron) Maybin, (Maurice) Evans and (Josh) Gaines, do you want to just get the best players on the field? And if that means putting Gaines inside, how much of that comes into play just making sure you have your best players out there?
I don't think can you do that with defensive lines today because of how much effort it takes to rush the passer and how strong you have to be play after play. You play against a 340 pounder, 330 pounder and you're a guy like Gaines at 265 pounds, unless you've got somebody behind him, they're going to wear you down. So we've really got to have three or four guys inside, and three or four guys outside, because otherwise you can't hold it up. In the fourth quarter, they'll kill you.
Q. (Mickey) Shuler -- is it the ankle that bothered him earlier this season?
Yes, it's the same one.
Q. Will (Andrew) Szczerba go in their place then?
Szczerba would play. And (Greg) Miskinis, who is a kid from down the road here (Lewistown).