Penn State Football
Buffalo Head Coach Lance Leipold Postgame Press Conference
vs. Buffalo – September 7, 2019
Opening Statement
I'm really proud of our football team. We competed extremely hard and played very well for 30 minutes. We came out in the second half and obviously there was a switch in momentum. Credit to Coach Franklin and his staff and team for making adjustments at half - you can see why they are a top 25 team, [they are] explosive. But at the same time this group of young men battled and we took a huge step as a football team tonight from game one to game two and I was extremely proud of them.
Q: You guys knew crowd noise was going to be a big factor tonight, do you think you responded to the noise and how did you account for that?
A: I think we had one false start that whole game and for us to have that with a crowd like that especially in the third [quarter] with all the young kids we have on this team, I said before those are some of the things I'm really proud of. That was one thing they didn't let affect them. Joey [Banks] gets a big hit to cause a fumble as they drive to start the third quarter then unfortunately the pick-six and then the blocked punt and we kind of steamed rolled from there.
Q: How important is resilience for your team?
A: We talked about it all week and talk about it all the time. We're going to be relentless and we talk about our effort level all the time. As we talked about this team starting to create its identity for this year, that this [game] would be a huge measuring stick in this year because we knew coming into a situation like this that diversity was going to happen in some capacity. Now, as the guys just said, the score doesn't represent the resilience of this team. Obviously, we weren't doing enough, and I'll leave it there.