Sept. 13, 2016 Christian Campbell | Jr. | Cornerback
Q. Going back, since you got here, you played right away and dealt with some injuries. What was last year like for you trying to balance that? I'm sure you wanted to be out there.
CC: It was real frustrating to me. I used to pray every day that I would get back healthy and I just kept working. I just took my mind off the injuries and just put my mind on working and getting back healthy so I can be in the game.
Q. Are you usually a patient person, though?
CC: Yeah. I'm really patient.
Q. Christian, when you guys have a young defensive line like you do and some of those guys are working through issues like they are, do you have to be mindful and wary that you have to do more to help out in run support or in contain or things like that?
CC: I mean, as a defense, we have to worry. It doesn't matter how young the defensive line is. I mean, at one point we had young cornerbacks, you know, so I don't think that's a problem. I mean, if the defense comes together, it will be good. It doesn't matter how young you are.
Q. So, you said before you guys used to be a young cornerback room and young defensive back's room at that. What kind of steps did you all take to grow in game and what experiences did you take to grow in game and how might that be an example to set now the first two tiers of the defense?
CC: We had people that were older than us that were playing, and they took us under their wing and they showed us, like, what to do and how to handle things, and they were all role models. So, I mean, that's a learning experience for us. As we grew and as we're here now, we have young corner backs, so we showed them how to do things and the experience, and how we do things on the field. So, yeah.
Q. How much fun do you have playing with Marcus Allen and what is he like in the room?
CC: I mean, it's real fun. He has a lot of energy. I mean, that's my brother. We're roommates. It's like when we come on the field, like, we're even closer, because we live together. We're always together 24/7. I think it's very exciting because he has so much energy.
Q. Got a follow-up about Marcus. Is he -- this might be a weird question -- is he like famous on Twitter or something? And also what's that experience like for you as his roommate?
CC: I mean, that's his business. That's his personal business. I don't get into that. It's just social media to me.
Q. Since you've been here, and since Coach Franklin has been here, you've been in a rotation, and a pretty heavy rotation, too. How do you guys talk about that? What is that like for you as a corner to, you know, be on the field and then give that off to somebody else?
CC: Really, it's just about just doing your job and being able to, bring more depth to the team. I mean, you don't worry about, 'let me just stay on the field and nobody else get in.' It's not that. I mean, all the corners work hard. So, we all deserve to play. So we don't worry about the rotation. If it's two series that we are in, and the coach say, you going to be out for the next two series and the other corners go in for the next series, you root them on, because we all deserve to play, so it's like a rotation. I mean, if somebody is tired, then we have another corner, and we have a lot of depth, so I think all of the depth in the rotation is better for Penn State Football.
Q. You're one of three guys from Alabama on the defense and Grant's from Atlanta, which may as well be in Alabama. Do you guys have to stick together, and do those freshman kickers count in that group? I mean, it's kind of weird because you're this far north, but you're basically all from the same neck of the woods.
CC: I'm really close to Torrence, and I'm close to Grant, too. It doesn't matter where we are from, for real. Everybody on the defense and offense, we are brothers, and we all stick together no matter what. As for the specialists, when they first came in, I didn't know they was from Georgia. That was like shocking to me when I found out. I was like, 'wow, I didn't know they was from Georgia.' We have a couple people that was from the south on the team, and I think that's cool.
Q. What surprised you about the fact that those guys were from Georgia?
CC: I just didn't know we had more people from down south that came in. Usually people tell me 'we got some more southern players on the team.' Like I really didn't know until like the next two weeks when they came in.
Q. How about family travel to up here? How difficult is that? Are your parents or families able to get up to see you play much?
CC: It's very difficult. My mom, she usually probably comes to like one game during the season. With my injuries last year, she wasn't able to come to that many. This year, she will be at plenty of games because I might get her to fly up here, probably like when we play Ohio State. She's coming to the Indiana game. I think that's the closest game that she can come up to because we go to Indiana this year.
Q. Christian, we'll talk to John Reid tomorrow and everything we've heard, and every time we talk to him, it seems like he's the insanely dedicated film guy, kind of a junky in there. What can you tell me about watching film with him and him overall as a person? He seems very kind of dialed in on football, with everything he does.
CC: Yeah. John Reid is very competitive. He watches film a lot. With me being a junior and him being a sophomore, I learned a lot from him. Yeah, just watching film. I used to watch film, but I didn't really like just tune in like he does. I learned from him. I started watching film more, and that gave me more motivation, from John Reid.
Q. Christian, can you tell me what Temple brings to the table and also the type of atmosphere you're expecting on Saturday with the Stripe Out?
CC: We haven't started practicing on Temple yet. We start practice today. I have been watching a lot of film on Temple. They do running pass. The Stripe Out, I think it's going to be very exciting. I really like, you know, all of the fans. I don't worry about the Stripe Out. I just worry about how many fans are at Beaver Stadium, because I really think it's so exciting. That wins us games, two. It's like a 12th man, because of the fans.
Trace McSorley | So. | Cornerback
Q. How would you say you've adjusted to the tempo each week in games, and would you like to see it get even faster?
TM: I think our tempo continued to improve from week one to week two. Obviously there's always room for us to go faster, always room for us to get lined up and get the play calls, stuff like that, going fast. So obviously, that's something we're going to keep trying to push. That's going to help us. The faster we go, the better it will be for us. I feel fine adjusting to the tempo.
Q. Trace, shortly after the game, (former Penn State quarterback) Todd Blackledge, tweeted out about his first game against Pitt. He had thrown an interception that sealed the game. I am just curious if you had heard from him or any other past Penn State quarterbacks in the past couple days to maybe wish you well, or anything like that?
TM: No, not directly.
Q. We saw DaeSean after the game obviously understandably upset. How do you think he's bounced back so far and did you say anything to him since the days since?
TM: I talked to him that night, just told him it's something he's going to come back better from, going to bounce back stronger. He's kind of taking that mentality over the last couple days, knowing that he's going to come back stronger and have that motivation that something like that won't happen again to him. So, he's definitely motivated now, and I think it's going to be pretty impressive just to see how he bounces back and see what he can now do.
Q. Hey, Trace. We just spoke with James about ball protection, cutting back turnovers et cetera, a couple of those fumbles from a blind-side hit. What did you see on film after going back to it, and what specifically sticks out to you about the ball-protection aspects of your game?
TM: It's something we need to take a strong focus on in practice. Really try and, when we do our ball security drills, take that as serious as possible. Because we saw that, that was a big deciding factor in Saturday's game. That's probably the main thing I took away from watching film. And there's some things that I can do just being stronger with the ball in general, you know, making better reads, stepping up to the pocket, kind of have a little bit better protection there. Just taking the ball security drills that we do every day, and really trying to make that as hard as we can on ourselves, trying -- if you got a partner, knocking the ball, you're really trying to have him really try to knock it out of you. So, in practice, it can improve there, and in the games it won't end up happening.
Q. Do you usually have partners with you to try and knock the ball out of?
TM: Usually I'm with Billy Fessler. We've always been together the last couple years.
Q. Trace, you know, lots of yards, lots of points on Saturday with virtually no run game. What could you guys be offensively if the run game takes off?
TM: I think you can see -- we put up a good amount of points on a real tough Pitt defense, And some -- I guess is the silver lining we can maybe take away from last Saturday. We get -- just shows we get all aspects of our offense firing on the same cylinder and get everything going, this offense can be pretty special and be very explosive.
Q. Trace, a lot is made of chemistry and timing with receivers in the passing game. I'm just curious about with running backs on the zone read plays. How much chemistry, timing, trust, is needed for you guys to be on the same page when you're putting it in there and having to pull it out. How would you evaluate where you and running back Saquon Barkley are with that at this point?
TM: I'd say it's the same amount of chemistry that's needed with the receivers and quarterback, as it is with me -- or, the quarterbacks and Saquon and other running backs, just with the read options and stuff like that, putting the ball in and them not grabbing down on it and letting us pull it if we need to, and then when we give the ball they take it and run with it. That's something we work on every single day in practice. We worked on a bunch over the summer, just on our own time. That's something we've put a lot of importance on it, so that's something that we're just going to continue to improve on in practice and get better at.
Q. Hey, Trace, what's your mindset when you know you're going to be in a game where the offense is going to score a lot of points or going to try to score a lot of points? Is that different than maybe a game where you feel like the first team did 20 wins?
TM: I mean, I don't think as an offensive player you come out not expecting to put up as many points as you can. There's not really a different mindset. You go out there and try and score as many points as you can every time you step on the field on offense.
Q. Is there a difference when you know you're going to play a shootout than a low scoring game?
TM: I don't know if there's a difference. Every time you try to get on the field, you're trying to score a touchdown, you're trying to score points. You're not thinking all right, this try we can punt the ball, something like that. You're trying to score points every time you get on field on offense.
Q. Hey, Trace, what was the mood like on Saturday compared to the Temple last year, and because of those games, how much more maybe are you guys looking forward to going against another in-state team on Saturday?
TM: Probably a similar feeling. Just guys were upset obviously after the game. A hard-fought game. It just didn't end up working out in our favor. We took too long to get going, waited until the second half and we got down 21 points. At one point it was 28-7. So, you do that, you're not going to win a ton of games.
So, I mean, probably similar feeling to what we felt last year at Temple. This way you're just looking forward to getting out there, getting back in front of our fans out at Beaver Stadium and doing everything we can to get a win this week.
Q. Do you believe that an offense takes on the identity of the quarterback, and if you do, what would you want the offensive identity for Penn State to be?
TM: Yeah. I think that's something that I can relate the identity of whoever in that leadership position on offense. As a quarterback, I want this offense to be confident in what we're doing. Every time we go out, to feel we're going to score points, and we're going to be successful every single drive we have, and for us to kind of have that little bit of competitive edge where we're not going to accept punting the ball. You obviously want to end every drive with a kick, but if you have a good drive, you start out and punt the ball. We want to get back and fix what happened immediately and be able to come back on next drive and put points on the board.
So I would say that's where I want to see this offense be, kind of the culture of this offense, just confident, and kind of playing with little bit more of an edge, I guess, over the rest of the season.
Q. Trace, when James was in here, he said that Pitt, them clapping on defense was messing up the cadence. What was it like from your vantage point kind of dealing with that and how do you think you guys responded?
TM: I mean, it is something that happened during the game. I don't know what Coach said about it, I'll just let you guys take his quote on that.
Yeah, it's something that we had to know was going on and kind of had to adjust. We changed up our cadence a little bit when we got to the sideline, talked to guys on offense, and offensive line and (offensive line) Coach (Matt) Limegrover and (offensive coordinator) Coach (Joe) Moorhead and, all right, if that's how they're going to do it, we're going to need to adjust what we're doing. So, that's all we did. We changed up our cadence with how they're doing it so try and eliminate that being a factor.
Q. Trace, this week, aside from working on ball security this week in practice. What's one minor detail you're going to improve on? Whether it's selling play action, going through your progressions better, leading receivers? What is a detail-oriented thing you think you saw on film after two weeks?
TM: I say my movement in the pocket. It's something that -- the first week, definitely I was kind of -- Coach Morehead called it "being dead-footed at the top." That's something I really tried to work on last week in practice. You just continue to work on that and going through each snap with the reads, you know, just grinding through each snap and treating each play as its own energy, stuff like that. I think that was something that I can improve on this week and that's something I'm going to take into each practice and just folk us on.
Q. Trace, not to beat this to death, but (Pitt coach) Pat Narduzzi, in his press conference after the game, said that his defense was using the clapping to signal to each other, but from your vantage point, was that the case? And also did you see them doing that on film against Villanova the prior week?
TM: I hadn't seen them clapping on film the prior week, but if that's what Coach Narduzzi says, I don't know what they were talking about on their side. So, I guess that it is what it is.