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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 3, 2015

Angelo Mangiro

University Park, Pennsylvania

Q. You said you had a list of things you wanted to accomplish or you wanted to get things checked off before the last game. Are you able to share any of those items with us yet?
ANGELO MANGIRO: No, I still don't like to share. I think ask me after the final game. Maybe bowl preparation I'll probably share something for you. But not right now. Thank you.

Q. When an offensive line works as one unit, how do you get the running back involved in the pass protection just in terms of the communication and just getting everyone on the same page?
ANGELO MANGIRO: Are you asking me what's the process?

Q. Yes.
ANGELO MANGIRO: Yeah, you know, it starts with the front identification with the center. Then it works to Christian and the quarterbacks and the center of where the Mike point is, and then depending on the protection scheme, you know, and the formation, where the line is sliding to, our backs have a -- in our offense, our backs are responsible for protecting, also, and it's a tough responsibility because we're locked into one or two guys and they kind of have to read the safety rotations and things like that to have an understanding where the place might be coming from. They have a tough job, but they do a really good job of picking things up.

Q. Last couple weeks it seems that Christian has had more room to step up in the pocket, instead of left to right. What have you seen up there in the last couple weeks?
ANGELO MANGIRO: Yeah, I don't know. I can tell you this: You want your pocket -- you want your center and your two guards to set the depth of the pocket and then your tackles to set the width. Yeah, from what you're telling me, we've done a good job of doing that, so we're going to keep it up.

Q. You've seen a lot of offense during your time here at Penn State. I was wondering if you could evaluate the growth from game 1 of the offense as a whole, the different moving parts that seem to kind of fit together a little bit better this last weekend, from then to now.
ANGELO MANGIRO: Yeah. So the growth. I think growth with personnel, you know, we're playing a lot of young guys, and obviously you see the success of Saquon and Polk and DeAndre, just a couple young skill guys that have matured a lot and have had growing roles in the offense. So that's helped a lot.

And then, you know, just you communicate with your coaches as players, and Coach Franklin always preaches what we like to do and communicating that back and forth, what we're comfortable with, what we want to try and things like that, and I think that communication has grown and has helped our offense progress. And I think Coach Donovan has done a great job of each game understanding the defenses that we're playing and understanding our personnel and ways that we can try to attack them and exploit them.

Q. Is there an aha moment for you as an older guy where you see these younger guys starting to pick it up more in practice or getting on the same page and able to handle a little bit more?
ANGELO MANGIRO: What was your question again?

Q. At what point do you see that develop to a point where these young guys are starting to put it together, they're on the same page a little bit more, and they're able to handle more and make you guys more variable as an offense?
ANGELO MANGIRO: Yeah, I think you see spurts of that during camp, and I think that's part of the development of seeing young guys, and that's part of the evaluation process of, hey, is this guy going to redshirt or is this guy going to help us. The more consistent they can be during camp, you know, it gives you more confidence in a young guy, and throughout the season, you know, it's -- you see things in practice, and now you're starting to play in games, and it's like, okay, we see the evaluation process in practice, and is the guy a hard worker, is he being coachable and things like that. But now it's like do we also see it in the game.

When guys do both, it helps the team out and elevates the play of everyone else around them. And from an older guy, seeing younger guys do that, you appreciate it, because it's your senior season, and you count on those young guys to help us to get wins.

Q. A lot of guys who don't normally get game reps got game reps on Saturday. Talk about how important those game reps are.
ANGELO MANGIRO: You know, and as a redshirt freshman, I was able to get a lot of game reps. I think offensively, as an offensive line, I'm stuck in my box sometimes, but normally a young guy gets his PAT reps his first year and gets a couple game reps. But moving on to next year, when each year you get older, the more you're expected to perform, getting those game reps early and experiencing the stadium and the crowd and the noise and competition from someone else, being able to deal with the pressure and anxiety of performing in front of everyone, handling that and just not doing anything outside of your technique and fundamentals, not doing anything that you're not coached to do and perform is something that it's not as easy as you would think.

You go out there and you want to play well, and a lot of things going on in your head. So for young guys to get reps like that now with sometimes the score being skewed in our favor, it's huge for them just to be able to experience the field.

Q. When Wendy is at center and you're at guard, how does the communication work because earlier in the year you were at center, and I'm sure you're making a lot of line calls. Are you doing as much talking now as you did earlier?
ANGELO MANGIRO: Yeah, you know, I told Wendy that he's got the ball, and it's his game to call. In the beginning I was making the majority of the calls. Now being from a left guard perspective, I don't want to overstep him and make calls because I might not be able to see something on the right side of the line. But anything that's coming in a way that I can see, then I'm going to help him out as much as I can.

I think the communication has been pretty good between him and -- between the guys up front, and we obviously need to continue that.

But I'm going to help him out as much as I can, and to be honest, he's been around a while, and he doesn't really need much of my help. He's extremely capable.

But like anything, you want -- overcommunication is a good thing. Up front, at least.

Q. Coach talked before about criticism, and he said when a coach criticizes a player it's more about the performance than the person. How would you evaluate the way they critique you and how responsive the players are to that?
ANGELO MANGIRO: Yeah, I mean, I like our coaches here at Penn State, and I don't think they're critiquing us as people. When you do get corrected on the field, they're not attacking your character at all. I think they're just trying to critique you as a player, not as a person, in most circumstances. But they want you to get better.

Coach Hand, I can speak for him because I deal with him on a daily basis, he's an energy guy, intense guy, and he always tells us, like we're his guys and he's going to do whatever he needs to do to get the best out of us and make Penn State better. You know, if it's correcting your technique and yelling at you about your technique because you repeatedly do it wrong, then if he needs to yell at you to get it across to you, then that's what needs to happen.

But at the same time, a lot of times that's not the case. We talk and talk things out and perform that way.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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