Penn State Football
Defensive Student-Athlete Quotes
vs. Michigan State – October 13, 2018
Kevin Givens | DT | Sr./Jr.
Q: Kevin, could you take me through your vantage point on the game-winning touchdown? What was going on in your area during the whole thing?
A: I mean I was rushing the passer, but we just have to finish the game overall as a defense and team, so that's what happened.
Q: What do you say to Amani [Oruwariye]? I mean obviously he was upset after that, did you say anything to him, and what was Coach Franklin's message to you guys?
A: I mean it's football. You're going to make some plays and you're going to miss some. You can't tell somebody not to attack the ball, I mean it happens. As Coach Franklin said, we just have to stick together and just be a team, so we'll be alright.
Q: How do you explain the demeanor from this one compared to two weeks ago, because Coach Franklin seemed different to us. Is there a different feeling or is it more of the same?
A: They both hurt but we just have to finish out football games at the end of the day, so I mean it's nothing different. A loss is a loss.
Shareef Miller | DE | Sr./Jr.
Q: Do you feel like a lot of the problems you guys had today were sort of self-inflicted?
A: Penalties killed us, things like that.
Q: What's the message like to a guy like Amani [Oruwariye] at the end of the game?
A: I just told Amani that I love him. He played a great game. He was battling, he was attacking the ball every time to try and get an interception.
Q: How do you guys respond? Is it better to not have the bye week this time around and have a quick turnaround against Indiana?
A: We just have to get back to work tomorrow, put this game behind us, make corrections from this game and then get ready for Indiana.
Q: Should you be worried about the morale on this team? After back-to-back losses how are you going to come back from it?
A: I'm not worried. I know the type of guys we have in the locker room, the type of culture. We just need to all stay together as a family.
Q: You had a couple penalties that sustained drives for them on defense. How frustrating is it to do that?
A: It's real frustrating to know that you can get a stop, but then you get a costly penalty. It doesn't matter if you get them at the beginning of the game or at the end of the game. They catch up to you when they catch up to you.
Nick Scott | S | Gr./Sr.
Q: James talked about how you guys invest a lot of emotion into every game. How tough is it to do that and not get the results you wanted out of these last two games?
A: It's tough. There is a lot of emotion involved with this sport. But a lot of the times when you have this kind of outcome, especially with a team like ours, we're so tight in the locker room. A lot of the times adversity makes us stronger.
Q: When you say 'it makes us stronger,' does it also make you closer as a team, do you think?
A: Absolutely, I think it makes us a lot closer. One of the reasons is after this type of result you're going to hear a lot of outside noise that you don't necessarily want to hear. Especially with how important wins are in this conference. One of the reasons why we've been so successful in the past is because when we have faced adversity, we've kept everything in-house, we've banded together, become stronger teammates and have reaped the benefits.
Q: Was tiring on defense an issue again today?
A: No, I think we came out with a lot of energy throughout all four quarters. I'm extremely proud of how guys played. I didn't think there was any falter on energy or anything like that. We were juiced
up, we were ready to go, we just have to make plays when it's time to make plays.
Q: Nick, Amani [Oruwariye] looked emotional coming off the field. As a leader on defense, do you go up to him and say anything or do you let him deal with that on his own a little bit?
A: I spoke to him. Amani is an extremely emotional player. We love Amani, and he's very hard on himself with things like that but nobody should ever be upset at Amani. He's one of the best playmakers we have on this team. We're just going to band around him, keep him strong and everything like that, and we're just going to come out and learn from this week and be better next week.
Garrett Taylor | S | Sr./Jr.
Q: What are the things you have to change practice wise? What are the things that come to mind immediately after a game like this that you guys might want to look at or revisit?
A: Little stuff. Little selfish penalties. A lot of times, coach talks about not being selfish and we had the one on the goal line when we were in our jumbo package. The defense did a great job. Three downs in a row, we got the stop, and then we had a selfish penalty. We had a couple holdings in there and stuff like that. It's all about the little things, to make sure were disciplined enough when it comes to game day to not to change anything that we do in practice.
Q: Any residual at all from the Ohio State game?
A: I wouldn't say so. I think we moved on. Our goal is to be 1-0 each week, and that was our focus with Michigan State, so I think we were well past the Ohio State game, we just didn't do enough to win this one.
Q: What do you say to Amani after a game like that? Obviously he was really emotional leaving the field.
A: We're proud of Amani. He's done a lot for this program. He's made big plays when we needed him to. He has that mentality to always go after the ball. That's what [Coach Pry] was saying. Amani will always go after the ball. We're going to live and die by that, so we'll have his back, and we love him. I'm proud of him.