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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 24, 2015

Troy Reeder

University Park, Pennsylvania

Q. You guys are playing a top 10 team this week in Michigan State. I'm curious, do you feel like you have anything to prove here? I say that because you guys haven't beaten a winning power five team. Do you feel like you have something left to prove?
TROY REEDER: Yeah, I think there's always something left to prove, unless you're the national champion. I think for us, we just know that the best is still yet to come. Even though this is the last game of the season, we know that we have more left in our tank. We're continuing to grow, get better and better every week.

Q. (No microphone.)
TROY REEDER: Yeah, I think for us, we want to, one, send these upperclassmen out on a high note, and two, just for ourselves and the returning players, just end the season on a high note and go into next year with some momentum.

I think in terms of what we want to prove, it's just that a lot of teams question -- a lot of people out there question how high of a level are we capable of playing at, and I think we've done a good job of hanging in some tight games. But you know, for us, I think it's time that we, like you said, knock off a power five team.

Q. When you have a chance to go back and watch the film, what stood out about the tackling? It seemed like it was pretty shaky for you guys.
TROY REEDER: In the Michigan game? You know, I think we were a little disappointed because we know we're better than that. You know, we've got to bring our feet, wrap up, drive our legs, keep our head up, and get back to the fundamentals.

Q. Is it frustrating that it's still (inaudible) because I know we've talked about it before.
TROY REEDER: Yeah, we've got some young guys out there accompanied by old guys all around. You can always improve on your fundamentals. I think that's something all over the country that with taking your head out of the game and stuff that you don't get to work on quite as much in practice as back in the day I guess you could say.

But still, you know, that's on us as the players to continue to get better every week on that.

Q. Talking about tackling, you seem like a guy that every time you hit someone just about everyone feels it, like you've hammered some people. Is that a sort of thing that just comes naturally? How do you get to that point in your career, where you're like, he's going to feel that tomorrow?
TROY REEDER: Yeah, I think tackling has been something since I was pretty young that actually didn't come super natural to me. I think growing up I was more of an offensive player until high school. I started off high school as a quarterback, didn't really have much interest in playing defense. But once I started to see my potential, it's something that you work on. Just, like I said, fundamentally, a lot of guys have the strength. That's why WWE players can't play football. It's a lot different. But just athletically being able to wrap, roll, different tackling techniques is something you work on growing up, and the older you get, the bigger and stronger and faster the backs get, so you've got to continue to grow and develop.

Q. Do you think you could take out Brock Lesnar?
TROY REEDER: Maybe if he -- that's a tough one. He got cut by the Vikings, so I don't know what position he was playing. I don't think he'd be a great running back.

Q. Are there situations when you know you're going to be able to hit a guy if the play comes the way that it should?
TROY REEDER: Yeah, especially if we fit our gaps right, and that's something that from the stands and all the ends, it's tough to see really how amazing it is on the fly as fast as it is that the defensive line takes their gaps, whether it's a stunt or just our base defense, and then you add in pullers and different movements, and it's like fitting a puzzle, really, and how fast guys have to think and set people up. When you get that back tight in the hole, I think that's probably the best time that you know you probably have a good chance of getting him.

Q. You got here at a unique time for a true freshman Penn State football player where the older players weren't really used to a coaching staff because the coaching staff was new so they couldn't really tell you what to expect. Can you describe that process when you're coming in and everybody is on the same slate, so to speak, and do you think it's contributed anything to the short-term development of the program where you guys did have to get on the same page maybe so quickly?
TROY REEDER: Yeah, I do. I think in -- I think what we're experiencing now that the program is two years in, which is really nice, is that the upperclassmen are able to -- you know, like you said, we've had three different offensive systems for our seniors, three different defensive -- three to four defensive systems for our defensive seniors, that now that it's been a year and a half, two years, we have the offenses down, we have the defenses down. Guys like Christian can talk to the young guys about what the offense is about and teach them, because you're only allowed a certain amount of hours in the week. When our class came in, I can speak defensively, it was our starters on defense still were learning the defense through camp. You know, it's hard for them to teach the young guys when they're trying to learn it themselves.

I think we're getting to the point now where even our redshirt freshman guys are able to help out the true freshman guys coming in. I think that's something that is going to continue to help us start off the season a lot stronger in terms of being able to have our whole defensive package in by the first game, whole offensive package in by the first game, and as we continue to have more and more returning starters, which we will as we continue to age as a team, is that we'll have that experience and things will be less chaotic, really, and it's just part of experience.

Q. When you face some of that criticism, you guys all come in here with the adversity of losing players in your unit and then you face criticism down the road about tackling issues and things like that. What kinds of specific conversations do you all have with each other about these things?
TROY REEDER: You know, certain things from the outside may look like we need to work on something, or sometimes there's stuff we need to work on that the outside people don't see.

You know, that's up to our coaches and our players to decide where do we need to work to get better at. I think that our coaching staff does a really great job of structuring our practices and the minimal time that we have on improving in those aspects that we feel like are the most important to helping us win.

In terms of the outside, you know, we're focused pretty internally. I think that's something you have to be at this level is you're going to face criticism. It could be anything, really. Just knowing that it's about you and your teammates and the coaches and in general the whole Penn State football family, what we're able to do to get better week in and week out.

Q. I wanted to ask you about tackling, hitting hard again. It seems like a lot of times that almost there's a certain mentality about that, or is it more that you're just going to the football and not thinking? Is there a mentality that you have to have when you're going to do that, or is it more along the lines of something that -- it's something that naturally comes?
TROY REEDER: I'd say a lot of people say if you think you stink, it's kind of a mentality of don't overthink things. So I would say it's more of a just mentality and natural instincts that are developed in practice, and then in the games when you're really able to tee off on somebody, they say aim four feet through the man. So the momentum of your body and whatnot is -- if you aim four feet through a guy, you're going to tear him in half, and that, I think, is the best mentality that I could describe what I think about when I hit people.

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