Opening Statement: We've had a great experience. We've been here almost a full week. We've had a great time in the city of Atlanta. The Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl have been phenomenal.
I want to thank Georgia Tech as well, and Coach [Brent] Key has allowed us to use their facility. We've been there one day and we've been over in the stadium practicing the other days, which is a phenomenal facility.
So we've had a great experience. Been treated in a first class manner. The hotels have been great. Had a chance to interact with Lane [Kiffin], which has been really good. We have a lot of coaches and friends in common, but we haven't really spent a ton of time together in the past. We were at the Dodd dinner last night, which was a great event, but we're excited about playing a really good opponent in SEC country.
I've been a head coach in the SEC as well, so I'm very familiar and got a ton of respect for Ole Miss specifically and the conference as well. And it should be a great game that's sold out, and we're looking forward to it.
Q. James, now that we know that Saturday will be Adisa's [Isaac] last college game, what would you say about what he has meant to this program, and what's the biggest way you've seen him grow over his time at Penn State, whether that's on or off the field?
A: Well, what I was happy about is that Adisa put that out on social media, and this is one of the few ones that Lane didn't retweet with a smiley face because Adisa is playing in the game, so that was good.
Adisa's a great Penn State story. Kid out of Canarsie High School in New York, has really come to Penn State and thrived. I think you guys all know his story and his family. Really maximized his time and experience at Penn State.
I think he improved his stock as a football player over his entire career, but specifically this year, I think he's going to end up getting drafted really high. Graduated from Penn State, really just did it right. We talk about high production, low maintenance guys all the time. He's a perfect example of that.
I'm a big Adisa Isaac fan. His mom has been phenomenal throughout this journey as well. He's a good example. I'm still a big believer of the college athletics model, and I think Adisa is a perfect example of a young man that took advantage of that, and specifically Penn State. And I'm looking forward to watching him play this last game. I think he's going to play really well.
Q. This is for both coaches. What have you guys decided in terms of will you or will you not have sideline iPads and also in-helmet communication for this game?
A: I think the way the NCAA set up the bowl was that both teams had to agree to use the technology. And for whatever reason, we've not decided to do that. So we will not be using it, from what I understand. But that was an option.
Q. What have you seen from Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart?
A: Jaxson and Ole Miss, I think the thing that jumps out from my perspective is balance. And a lot of times when you talk about balance, people think you're talking about running the ball 50 percent of the time and throwing the ball 50 percent of the time. And the reality is they have done that too.
I think maybe the perception of Lane and Ole Miss is throwing the ball all over the field, but their running back is a challenge. And I think they do a great job of running the ball and running into advantageous looks. The other thing, when you talk about balance, in my mind, is also being able to spread the ball around the field, that there's not one receiver that you have to stop. They've got three receivers that have all been really productive, probably the best combination of production at the receiver position that we've faced this year.
Obviously, they've been able to run a ton of plays, and that's a combination of tempo, but just as much tempo as it is offensive success. They've been successful. So they've been able to put drives together and get on the field and get off the field.
I think the quarterback has done a really good job of being able to make plays with his feet, being able to make plays with his mind, and being able to make plays with his arm and distribute the ball to multiple playmakers that Lane and their offensive coordinator have done a really good job of putting in really good positions to make plays.
Q. You're ending the regular season heading into the Peach Bowl as a Top 12 team. What does that say about the state of your program at the end of 2023 and how you can take that into 2024 with a Peach Bowl win?
A: I think the way we ended last season with a Rose Bowl win, I felt like the momentum was a real positive for our program, whether it was recruiting, whether it was transfer portal, whether it was just a general feeling and excitement with our fans, with the media, with our players in the locker room. I think that was helpful.
I think in some ways obviously a bowl game is the ending of the previous season, but in a lot of ways, you can also look at it as the start of the next year. I think our programs both are similar in some ways, but very different in others. We have not been a big transfer portal team. We've been more of a traditional high school recruiting team, but we do accent our recruiting through the transfer portal.
We're excited. We're excited about playing this game and playing this opponent and hopefully playing well enough that, again, we can have this momentum going into the off-season for recruiting, for spring ball, for the confidence that a lot of players that are going to play in this game that maybe haven't had as significant of roles earlier in the season.
So I think there's just a ton of reasons why this game is important for both programs and looking forward to playing it.
Q. With the transients of the portal and opt-outs, just recently in the last three years, have you embraced any kind of overall philosophy of keeping the team engaged, keeping everyone together? Has it been more of a challenge or not for bowl games and prep for bowl games?
A: We were discussing it a little bit last night, to be honest with you. I think that's the challenge, right? This is new. This is new to all of us, and it's really changed year by year.
Transfer portal windows, NIL, I think all these things have changed. So that's one of the more difficult things is I think in the previous structure, you could kind of rely on past experiences, but this has been a moving target. I think we're both trying kind of different approaches and trying to figure out what is the best thing for both of our programs. But I think it's a challenge for everybody right now.
This is one of the more challenging times in college athletics and specifically football, specifically when it comes to, like Lane mentioned, the calendar and the bowl games specifically and obviously the information that the players are getting from multiple resources.
Q. James, you talked before about it. I guess how would you go about potentially altering this calendar, and what concerns do you have about next year considering the timeline gets changed with the playoff semifinals and all that as well?
A: Chip Kelly made some comments a few weeks ago, and I think he said some things publicly that a lot of coaches have been talking about privately for a while. I think Lane brings up some really good points as well.
I think at the end of the day, and I've said this before, I think the reality is a commissioner of college football would be valuable. I think there's a reason for a commissioner of college football to be able to work with the commissioner of the NFL because I think the NFL should be working with college football.
Then I think the commissioners of the major conferences really all need to get into a room together and really spend some time working through all these issues. I think Lane's point is a good one. We could talk about this for a long time.
Right now, the way I see it, the commissioners of the conferences are the best people to solve these problems. Get them all into a room together. You could have representation from the NCAA as well, the NFL, and sit down and really start from scratch, a whole new calendar, a whole new model, recommendations. I think that's how this is really going to get done moving forward.
But it needs to happen, and I think it needs to happen quickly. Right now there's no parameters. There's no guardrails. And I don't really feel like it's in anybody's best interests.
I think, to Lane's point, I don't want it to be misinterpreted, I've been supportive. And I think most college coaches have been supportive of the players being able to earn. I think everybody would agree with that. But I think right now there just needs to be some parameters and everybody needs to be kind of working under similar constraints. I think that would make a ton of sense for everybody involved.
I think me and Lane came up in this profession where it was started; the starting point was based on education. Right now there's not one rule or decision being made based on education. I think there's a way to really balance both and be able to get both things done.
Q. You guys have had a lot of success, been in a lot of these New Year's Six games, but the last couple years, haven't gotten over the Big Ten hump at the top. How do you balance that success with that reality and where the program is? And how much are you looking forward to an expanded playoff?
A: I think the first thing, when you're in a place like Penn State, you embrace the expectations. That's why you came here. That's for our players, and that's for the coaches, and that's for myself. We embrace the high expectations.
But I do also know that we take a lot of pride in the consistency and how we've been able to play over the majority of our time at Penn State, and I think sometimes people take that for granted and don't realize how challenging that is in today's college football.
For us, it's being appreciative and recognizing what we have done well, but then also taking a deep dive and being very, very transparent and saying where do we need to grow? How do we get better? And how do we attack those things?
I think one of the things I've been pretty vocal about is really our first year with alignment from the chair of the board to the president of the university to the athletic director, who played football in the Big Ten, and myself.
This is a situation really in my ten years that we have not been in, and I think that's going to put us in a very powerful position moving forward.
Q. You were able to get your coordinators on board here in December. Now that, that process is done, what have you accomplished with Andy [Kotelnicki] and Tom [Allen], respectively, this month with getting them on campus and down here in Atlanta?
A: I think like Lane mentioned, it's not ideal. Obviously we'd prefer to be in a situation where our staff was still in place. Obviously we've had turnover at both positions or change at both positions for different reasons.
But I think the value of having these guys here not in coaching roles, I think is going to allow the transition to go smooth. We did this when we hired Manny [Diaz]. Brent Pry left to go be the head coach at Virginia Tech, and Anthony Poindexter was in a position to call the defense and be the defensive coordinator in the interim and did a phenomenal job.
I think Manny being with us, building relationships with the players, getting familiar with the staff, understanding the culture and how we operate from an organizational perspective, I think really allowed him to hit the ground running the day after the bowl game.
I think the model we're using with both coordinators during this whole bowl prep period, I hope we don't have to do it again, but I did think there was value last year. In talking to both Tom and Andy, I think they think it's been invaluable.
Things that they like, things that they have questions about, we're able to kind of work through those things. I think it will be really valuable for us moving forward.
Q. This question is for both of you coaches. Do you kind of see similarities in the two of your programs in Ole Miss and Penn State being close to the top of that conference and kind of working your way to get over there to be at the No. 1 kind of spot?
A: Yeah, I think in a similar way that Lane mentioned, up until the last two years, we were the only team in the Big Ten that had won a Big Ten Championship. So it is challenging.
But I also think there's that fine line of what we discussed, which is winning 10 games, winning 11 games in a conference like the Big Ten or in the SEC is more challenging on a consistent basis than I think people realize.
Then after that, it's being very, very transparent and honest with yourself and your entire program of what you need to do to take that next step, whether it's recruiting at a higher level out of high school, whether it's going more into the transfer portal.
I think Lane's point was a really good one. The high school model really only works anymore if the players and their parents will stay and allow them to be developed. If you put all your time into high school prospects, but they won't have the patience and take the time to allow you to develop them, then all you're really doing is developing them for somebody else's program. So that's the challenge.
I hear high school coaches and sometimes players being frustrated that some programs are being more portal heavy. Well, I think that's part of the discussion that needs to happen. Are you going to come here and allow yourself to be developed over four to five years? The problem is none of them see themselves that way. They all think they're going to be the three-year model.
So it's challenging, and I think all of us have to look at our programs specifically and the regions of the country that we're in and what's going to be in our program's best interests moving forward. They're not easy discussions.
Q. James, you mentioned Kalen [King], you have him for one more game. Just curious now with Johnny [Dixon] how you'll manage the time in the secondary, the playing time? Who else are you counting on in the secondary?
A: We'll play all the other guys that have played this year. They'll have a more significant role. I think that's going to be in some ways an opportunity, an exciting opportunity for them and for us.
Obviously it's going to be challenging because the type of wide receivers and offense that we'll be playing, but these are the guys that we are also going to be depending on next season. So it creates some more opportunities in this game. We've embraced it with a next-man-up mentality. Again, we're not the only program that's dealing with a little bit of this.
Q. I wanted to ask you this questions because I asked your players and your staff, no pressure because they had great answers, so I'm counting on you. Wawa or Sheetz?
A: You're putting me in a tough spot. For everybody in here that maybe doesn't cover Penn State closely, we're in central Pennsylvania, so right in the middle of the Eagles and the Steelers. I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, so I'm a Wawa guy. But now I live in central Pennsylvania, and it's Sheetz.
Lane's looking at me like I'm crazy. He probably doesn't know what Wawa or Sheetz is. I think I've got to stay with Wawa. I've got to stay with my roots and kind of where I grew up. But I have really learned to appreciate Sheetz being in central Pennsylvania. And I'm willing to negotiate if Sheetz or Wawa would like to work with our players moving forward with some NIL opportunities. I'm willing to negotiate.
Q. James, you talked about the Martin Luther King Museum for your players and that experience. For you, how has that experience been for you, and how significant is it for you?
A: It's interesting because it's kind of going back to what we talked about earlier with, I think, the challenge with college athletics and specifically college football, and when we got into the profession, a huge part of that was the educational component. I think that's being de-emphasized with a lot of the rules that are being passed or changes in rules that are being passed.
I think whenever you can take time with your team to pour into them experiences and opportunities like being able to go to the Martin Luther King exhibit was powerful. I think the bowl had it as an optional experience. We made it kind of mandatory for our team. We didn't tell them that it was optional. We just kind of put it on the schedule and went.
I think it was great for all of our players. I know it was great for me, personally. As much as I feel like I knew a ton about Martin Luther King and the background and the significance for our country and race relations, I learned a ton myself at 51 years old that I didn't know. Being able to go into the Ebenezer Baptist Church and take that all in was powerful.
To think about that time in our country, as a black man at 35 years old, to win the Nobel Peace Prize is amazing. I thought it was a great experience for our coaches. I think it was even more powerful for our players. A number of our players had been there before, but I think also through the bowl, we were able to get a maybe different and more significant experience with the tour, which was also great and very, very appreciative.
We've been fortunate on a lot of these different types of trips to be able to gain some perspective and some experience. So it was powerful for us, and I'm glad we did it. I would do it again.
