Opening Statement: I want to thank you guys for coming out and covering Penn State football. We truly appreciate it. The first thing I'd like to do is to thank the fans. This is one of the more special environments in all sports, not just college football, but in all of sports. They had a huge impact tonight. You're talking about an offense that wants to run the ball and RPO (Run-Pass-Option) and for them to get off schedule because they had five false start penalties which I'm going to give credit to our fans for that. We're going to need that again next Saturday. So don't allow anybody to get our tickets. Let's dominate that stadium next week again with our fans, make it a real challenging environment. I want to take a minute to thank our fans for the impact that they had on the game. Overall, I thought we played complementary football, offense, defense, and special teams all played well. We made the kicks that we needed to make. When we talked about extra points and field goals. We were able to kick them deep and not allow their kickoff return to be a factor in the game. When you talk defensively and offensively. The biggest thing that stood out to me in this game was third down. We were able to get off the field on defense on third down and we were able to stay on the field, you're talking about a team that, for the most part, led the country I think in third-down percentage. Minnesota was leading the country in third down conversion at 66%, their offense and we held him to 15.4% tonight to 2 of 13 on third down. Minnesota's defense was number one in the country and third-down defense at 21%, and tonight, we were at 45%. That was, to me, the story of the game and obviously, we started out a little slow on offense. Besides the big play that our defense gave up right before the half down the sideline. We played really well; we played really well. The stats that we talked about all the time, we essentially tied the field position battle at 29 and 30. The turnover battle was also a tie. In the penalty battle, we won and then in the explosive play battle we were 22% on offense and their offense was at 14%. We won that battle. So overall we played well. Again, I appreciate the support we got, and I open the questions.
Q: Hey, James, can you address the way that Sean bounced back after struggling a little bit early and do you have any reaction to offense that struggled early?
A: I have no reaction to those types of things. I'm happy as you guys know, I'm proud of Sean and he's a battler, he's resilient, and he's tough. He played well. If you look around the country, there are a lot of programs that would be super excited and happy about Sean Clifford being the quarterback and what he was able to do tonight against one of the better defenses in the country. I'm not going to get into any of those other things. But I'm proud of Sean and I love our whole quarterback room. I'm also glad that we were able to get Drew (Allar) some experience tonight as well. He's played in almost every game this year. But as you guys know, I'm a supporter of Sean Clifford.
Q: James, how big was it for Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen to be able to bounce back the way they did that.
A: I've been impressed with those guys all year long, two true freshmen that I think are playing at a high level. We were able to stick with the game plan and stick with the run. I thought we had a lot of diversity in our play calling tonight, whether it was play-action, pass, shots, whether it was getting the tight ends involved, getting Parker Washington involved and then those two running backs. I thought that the run that Kaytron had early on, where he ran over safety was a big-time run that got us going. Nick was able to break one there at the end. We just have to keep chipping away at it. We're able to run the ball a little bit more consistently. We have got to continue to build on that and we're also protecting well. That's our O-line and running backs doing a good job. I think Sean's getting rid of some balls. The throw that Sean made with the guy coming clean down in the middle; he knew he was going to get rocked and he threw the ball to Parker Washington. That was one of the better throws I've seen Sean make under duress standing in there and delivering a ball like that. That was big time.
Q: Penn State has played run-heavy teams in back-to-back weeks. What was different this week that allowed the team to have so much more success defensively?
A: It's as simple as we just consistently did our job tonight. We consistently did our job and held our gaps. Whether you're a two-gap team or a one-gap team, how we are built defensively is everybody's responsible for a gap. You have got to own your gap; you can't peek and try to fall into somebody else's gap. On good teams, the ball finds the open gap. We were consistent in doing that tonight. The other thing is the game plan was the same. You can make the argument that one of our strengths on defense is our defensive backs. Let's leave those guys on an island. Let's load the box up. Let's have the numbers in the run game. Hopefully, making contested catches in the pass game with man-to-man coverage. They got us on a few pick plays but for the most part, I thought we played well-rounded defense. Minnesota got a score there at the end with most of our backups in. There's a standard for whoever's on the field, it'll be good film to learn from for some of those young guys.
Q: Obviously they scored right before the half. So how big was it to get those? That third down stop and then to have Dominica Luca get a piece of that front right at the beginning of the second half?
A: When you talk about the middle eight, you know, that is a strong tendency in football. When you talk about it from an analytics perspective, the impact on winning, so you know, they differ and we're going to get the ball the second half, they had to score right before the half on the big third down play. So being able to get a stop to start the second half was really important. And to see a guy like Dom DeLuca you know, he's really kind of paid his dues and worked really hard. He's a guy who missed, basically his freshman year after winning a state championship with an injury and he's done everything right since he's gotten to the program. To see him make that type of play was awesome.
Q: James, what went into the decision that led to Abdul making his first start and to get him out there on the field early, and how do you think he played?
A: Yeah, you know, it was more about we've been playing some of what we call our big base. With three linebackers on the field. Curtis has played to the field so that allows us to move him out. Curtis had 14 tackles tonight, which I didn't even realize that until Chris, gave me the stats, which obviously is super productive. We knew we were playing a running team. We wanted to have three true linebackers and really three box linebackers on the field. You know, to make it difficult, we have a ton of respect for that running back. That was kind of the game plan. There are not too many teams in the country that are playing with three true linebackers on the field. But based on this game plan and this team that we're playing; it made a ton of sense.
Q: James how much does a performance like this tonight, big win, 100 recruits, whiteout, TV, how much does all of that help from a program standpoint with building not only for tonight, but for the future as well?
A: Yeah, I think first, we're 1-0 and we're happy to be 1-0. It was a good win. It was a great environment with a ton of recruits there that are going to have a huge impact on our future. If you look at our roster and you talk to players, which I know you guys have, how many of them have been to the white out and said, "You know, I want to play in that type of environment." So, yeah, it helps from a bunch of different perspectives. I haven't looked around and saw what happened this weekend, you know, when it comes to college football and other scores and things like that, but this was a good win for us against a good opponent at home. And obviously with a bunch of people who are going to have a significant impact on our future, so for a lot of different reasons, it was important.
Q: James, I know you want to enjoy this, but you did mention Ohio State with their early game today. Did you get a much of a chance to watch them and can you offer a little preliminary prognosis to them?
A: Our analysts have gotten a head start on them, but no. I mean, literally, the game ended like, what, 12 minutes ago. I haven't broken down Ohio State yet. They're a good football team and we're going to have to be ready to play, but we'd like to enjoy this for a few minutes and then I'll get in early Sunday morning, and we'll get started with these guys.
Q: Coach given what we know about Sean's injury, we obviously didn't know if he would start. When did you know he would start in this game and how impressed were you with the way he played given his injury status again, obviously we don't know much.
A: Yeah, I had a pretty good feeling like he would. He practiced on Tuesday, did the whole practice, but was pretty sore afterwards. Our doctors and trainers did a great job. Sean did a great job. Once Sean knew, you know there was nothing structurally wrong and it was just a pain management deal that he felt good about it and we felt good about it, and he still had his strength and his velocity, so we felt pretty confident and so did the trainers and doctors that he'd be able to go. But you know there's also the positive where, we had a day where those other quarterbacks got all the reps, which there's value in that too.
Q: Earlier this week, Theo Johnson said that he thought that he could add more value to the offense in the passing game. We saw him tonight with a touchdown catch and five catches. What did you make of his performance and for the tight end group, we really saw them involved today. What kind of emphasis was on that this week?
A: Yeah, he played well. We expect that from him. And I'm happy for him and he has that type of ability. I would say in general, I mean, there's going to be weeks, based on game planning and matchups, that you may emphasize a certain position or a certain guy, but really, a lot of times it just depends on how the defense plays out where the ball goes. So, it was a little bit of an emphasis, but it's not like we did anything different tonight. It's just how the game played out and how the defense reacted to our schemes. Sean just went where the defense told us to go. And sometimes that's going to be the running backs, sometimes that's going to be the wide outs, and sometimes that's going to be the tight ends. But I do think when Parker Washington touches the ball a bunch, and when our tight ends touched the ball a bunch, I think we're at our best, but there's a lot of guys obviously that we want to get involved. And I think that's what we're difficult to defend. I thought we had diversity in all different things. Even in the reverse play we ran it was not an explosive six-yard play, but when you run those things, it gives the defense hesitation. You know, they're not fitting the runs the same way when they're concerned about some of these different things. We move the pocket. I thought we did a bunch of really good things, especially with the play action pass. It was a well-rounded, really well executed game.
Q: The third quarter you scored three touchdowns, what stood out to you about the offense? And then additionally, how important was it to make Minnesota essentially one dimensional and make them throw the ball more than they wanted to?
A: Yeah, the one dimensional thing was big. You know, getting them behind the sticks with the false start penalties from our fans, that was big. Being able to try to get up by a margin where they had to throw the ball a little bit more than they wanted to, that's not really how they're built or wired. So that factored into it. Overall, I was pleased with how we played. I think the third quarter was probably as much about explosive plays. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it just seemed like we had a bunch of explosive plays in the third quarter that led to the points and touchdowns.