Penn State Football
Auburn Postgame Press Conference
vs. Auburn – September 18, 2021
Head Coach Bryan Harsin
Q: Can you take us through what the play call process is on that timeout with the fourth down at the goal line? Is it you and [Mike] Bobo who have the play ready? Take us through the decision on that please.
A: Yeah we talked about it. Everybody gives their input and we have those plays that are pre-planned and scripted in those areas. So those are things that you work on. I have to go back and look at it on exactly what happened and see where we can play at to get the result that we wanted. So those are things that go into a game plan and believe it or not, we actually spend time on working through it and taking a look at the different scenarios to get to that moment. That's the play selection that you have to choose so whether that menu plays a big hit like we wanted it to.
Q: I wanted to ask about early in that third quarter - the trick play. What was he thinking?
A: Well we thought we had something throughout the week watching film. It was going to be a good call for us and we came out with an attitude of 'get what you can out of it.' And we fumbled the ball, and we turned the ball over so that was one of the plays. Anytime there's a turnover in a game that becomes a major factor. And for us, our goal was always plus-one so we've got to figure out a way to get back. And we've got to create that on the defensive side, the offense gives it up but we try to be aggresive. We didn't see that was there and tried to go do exactly what we talked about and the ball got thrown around and they recovered it and it became a big turnover that started in the third quarter. That did not get us off on the fastrack that we wanted coming out.
Q: Were you surprised at the lack of pass rush from you guys. It seemed like [Sean] Clifford had a lot of time to throw the ball and he completed the vast majority of his throws today.
A: There was one, he stood back there for what seemed like about 10 seconds early in the game. I thought we got a better pass rush after that. You got to find ways to get after the quarterback and you got to find ways to get the ball off his hand. I thought he did a good job, he escaped a couple times where I remember, and made some throws in the perimeter. That goes back to coverage. So we've got to be able to plaster long enough when the guy's got the pocket. But ultimately if you can get after the passer and create some of those lanes that he's got to work through - he's good, he's mobile, he's able to do those things so I didn't think that we would keep him in the pocket the entire time. But we've got to do a better job of that and then if guys are scrambling, we've got to continue to keep covering our man and not give them the throw down the field or at least make it a contested catch and then try to get a hand on the ball.
Q: Could you talk about your assessment of the passing game tonight for you guys?
A: Yeah, we've got about 185 yards. That's where we needed to get some explosive plays, get opportunities to do that. We needed to catch the ball, and we needed to be in the right areas in the pass concept, so that just goes back to that those are things that we have to work on on this team. Those are things that have to be continually focused on, and they've got to become priorities for everybody involved in order for us to to go out there and execute those concepts that we have in there. Ultimately, we've got to come down, and we've got to make some plays. There were opportunities to do that. We needed to be able to hit some of those. We'll go back on Sunday. We'll work on it to get better at it. There will be other opportunities and games moving forward as well. Explosive plays become a difference in any game, not just this game, but you can hit some of those explosives in the pass game. We did - we had a few of them. We want to create more of those and give ourselves some opportunities to do that. We've just got to finish on those plays, and that will continue to be a work in progress as we go through the season.
Q: Back to that fourth down play late in the fourth, was the play to go to Kobe Hudson or was it a play where you get lined up and Bo picks the best opportunity that he sees and how do you feel like it came out?
A: It was a little more calculated than that but there are four options, really five and Kobe was one of them. There's five possibilities on that plane right there to give ourselves the best change to get somebody in the endzone. I gotta go back before making any comment on whether that was the right decision. We've got to go back and watch and see where the progression starts. And that's really the one things with the quarterback position, sometimes those plays don't work out and the main question is whether he made the wrong read. Well not necessarily sometime's it's a route or the defense doing a good job in their coverage. So we will asses that tonight as we watch the film on the plane. But ultimately, you want to give yourself a better chance in that situation. I don't know if that was a decision, we run that thing quite a few times and base the plays on it so I trust that what you saw out there, and we'll look at it and learn from it.
Q: Coach, can you talk a little about the time management strategy in the second half? You burned some timeouts early there, and we're left without timeouts at the end of the game. Can talk about that a little bit?
A: Yeah, well, we did that, to see what was happening on that play there so that was one that we used in that situation there. We didn't do a good job because I think we had 40 seconds left, we got the roll back so you know where they were. Before we got a chance to do I thought we managed to where we could get blowback and have a chance to score. Now we'll review that as well to look at all those things. Sometimes you use timeouts because you may not make the right decision, see something and want to make sure that you have the right call balance on those, and so that's what we used for them and the rest of my two minutes situation callback route.
Chandler Wooten | LB | Sr.
Q: They [Penn State] had a lot of success in the passing game tonight and at times it seemed like Sean Clifford had a lot of time in the pocket — what stuck out to you and what sort of issues did you guys have with defense?
A: We didn't stop the pass efficiently enough, allowed too many explosive plays. We didn't stop the run the way we wanted to. We all have to be better - safeties, corners, linebackers - it's not just a one-person game.
Q: What do you take away from this experience, a ball game that was a different challenge from your first couple games?
A: Obviously being on the road and a tough environment like this, night time game, white out, different atmosphere from being at home, traveling and staying at a different hotel and stuff like that. I feel like we played well. Everybody knows it's a long season but there's a lot of work to be done, plenty of time ahead of us and we've got to capitalize from here on out.
Q: What do you think you learned about this team and in the defense tonight? How do you think you guys are going to respond going into next week and SEC play in two weeks?
A: We got a group of fighters. Obviously we didn't have the outcome that we wanted, but everybody played extremely hard. It stings right now, but it's supposed to. As soon as we get back in tomorrow, we have to flush it and move forward. We've got Georgia State next week, so we have to start preparing for them.
