Opening Statement
I appreciate you all coming out and supporting Penn State football. First of all, you have to give Ohio State credit. They're a really talented team. I thought we played our tail off. In the first half, we were able to overcome the turnovers and stay in the game and battle. But you can't turn the ball over that many times against that type of opponent and think you're going to be successful. That is something we, for the most part, we have done a good job of this year, but we did not today. I thought we played hard and did some really, really good things. There's a ton of stuff to be proud of, but there's just as much stuff that we have to correct tomorrow. There's a lot of corrections that we obviously have to make. But, to me, the game starts and ends with the turnovers. You can't give that type of team a short field that many times and be successful. It's going to make it really challenging.
Q: How would you assess Sean's performance? Do you expect more from him than to turn it over four times?
A: I thought he played gutsy and made some big-time plays, but he can't have the turnovers. I don't know if the one was necessarily his fault. It was a pressure and a strip sack. The other ones, whether we left the ball inside or whether he has to find the throwing lane around really athletic long defensive ends. I thought he played gutsy. He did some really good things, but there's some things that we have to get cleaned up too.
Q: How do you reconcile being up in the fourth quarter against the number two team in the country, and then, literally seven minutes later you're down 20? How do you evaluate your team when something like that happens so quickly?
A: The game starts and ends with the turnovers. We knew with this type of opponent we were going to have to be able to score points on them. They're explosive on the offensive side of the ball. They're explosive on the defensive side of the ball. We played our tail off, but we made too many critical mistakes.
Q: How do you assess the play of your defense? You held them to 16 points, and you forced a bunch of field goals. Then, inevitably, they exploded for some points in spite of the turnovers. Can you talk about how your defense played overall? How do you assess that afterwards?
A: I thought we played our tails off, especially on a bunch of short fields. I think they had one drive right after we went down and got the lead again, one long drive that they put together and went tempo a couple times. For as many short fields as they had tonight, our defense played really well. Obviously, the one guy we struggled with is Marvin Harrison. He's a really good player. They went to him time and time again. But, overall, we played really well.
Q: James, what do you say to your sideline after those turnovers, or do you leave it up to your position coaches to talk to your players? How do you talk to Sean or someone like that?
A: That's not the time right there to critique them. They're feeling bad enough at the moment. You try to support them and move on to the next play. We'll make those corrections on Sunday.
Q: How would you describe the gap between Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State?
A: They got good football teams. We played really well against Ohio State today. We had a chance to win the game, but we made too many mistakes at critical moments, which you can't do against a top-ranked opponent like that.
Q: You guys converted three fourth downs. What did that do to just energize your team and keep you guys in it? You obviously didn't get the end result that you wanted but what did converting on those fourth downs do for your team?
A: Coming into this season, we wanted to be aggressive on fourth down. Coming into this game, you look at their game last week, we knew we were going to have to be able to score some points against these guys and take some risks and take some chances. Obviously the three that we converted were big and it allowed us to score points and allow us to score touchdowns. We're going to have to take on some of those risks. But, again, the margin of error against these types of opponents is very small.
Q: It seemed like you guys were a completely different offense in the first half, schematically, than you have been a lot earlier this year. How much were you guys saving for this game and how would you evaluate that first half of offensive performance from doing those things?
A: I thought some of the things that we did, from a change-up perspective in terms of formations and personnel groups, I think helped us. It gave them some things to think about. They weren't as confident with our formations and what we were going to run out of our formations. So, I think it was a nice change and I think allowed us to move the ball. We moved the ball pretty effectively against that team. I thought we did some nice things. Again, I don't mean to keep saying the same thing over and over again, but besides the turnovers, I thought we did some pretty good things on both sides of the ball.
Q: Parker Washington put together the most productive performance of his career to this point. Through the first seven games, we didn't get to see all that kind of production from him. Is this more indicative of who he is as a playmaker at this level of the Big Ten than perhaps what the statute reflected in the first half of the season?
A: Yeah, I think so. I mean, he's made plays really his entire career here. He is a contested catch guy; he's got the ability to make him miss. He's a really good route runner and has been productive. He had some opportunities tonight to make some plays, he made those plays. Obviously, I got a ton of respect for Parker and the type of player that he is.
Q: What is it about the screen game that you have liked so much over the last two weeks?
A: When you're playing that type of defense with that type of pass rusher, you've got to do some things to help your offense line out, to help your quarterback out, change of pace of things. You know, that's going to be something that we're going to have to continue to do all year long. But that was the reason for it. With that type of pass rush, you got to keep them with different looks, with different schemes, keep them kind of on their toes and on their heels with those things to be concerned about as well.
Q: Going back to the fourth downs, the one that wasn't converted, what went into that decision to go for it instead of taking 35-yard field goal there?
A: Yeah, I think I kind of already covered that, you know, coming into this game, felt like we were going to have to score touchdowns to win the game. And, you know, I know obviously the focus is on the one we missed, but I think people liked the three that we made.
Q: Regrouping emotionally after you were right there with six or seven minutes to go, how much of a challenge do you expect this week now.
A: Our leadership has been great, PJ (Mustipher) was great in the locker room right then. Losses are hard. They're hard around here, at a place like Penn State where we have really high expectations and standards. But, that's our job as coaches and that's their job players, to rebound as quickly as we possibly can, get the corrections made, and move on to our next opponent so we give ourselves the best chance to be 1-0 next week.