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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEAugust 4, 2016Brent PryUniversity Park, Pennsylvania Q. With three of your defensive linemen heading to the NFL, what kind of adjustments do you have to make with that? And how important has Gary Sickels been in trying to adjust from those three guys moving on? BRENT PRY: Anytime you lose players, this isn't the first time in my career that we've been in a situation where we've lost some good football players that were all-conference-type of guys. Not always to the NFL, but that's one of the challenges as coaches. I think you look at it two ways. To me, we've got some guys in that room that trained and worked day-to-day with some really good defensive linemen, learned some quality skills. As good as we want to be as coaches, those guys, those other guys in the room, the veterans, those guys learn from them as well. I think we've got great depth. It's unproven depth, but the roster in that unit right now looks better than it has since we've been here. There's talent. There's just not a lot of experience. There's young guys, highly recruited. There's old heads that just haven't played a lot because they've played behind those guys. So there are some challenges, but we're excited about where we can go this camp. Several of those guys have asterisks by their name on my depth chart with some notes that this is what needs to happen in camp. This is where they need to grow as a player. This is what they need to get better at. This is what we need to see from them. So when you have some young guys and you might need those guys, you've got to push the envelope a little bit until it becomes a negative. You want to push it and see where you can get with them. Q. (Indiscernible)? BRENT PRY: Absolutely. Garrett's had a monster summer. He's a guy that's battle tested. I think he played in the shadow a little bit last year. Garrett's gained a lot of maturity this summer. He's gained size, strength, he's a very good pass-rusher. If you go back and watch film from last year, he's a step away. Nassib's getting him or AJ or Zettel. He's right there. I think he's improved his skills. He's one of our, if not, he's one of our hardest workers, which is a great quality to have. He's a good leader in that room. Very excited for his year. Q. With Nyeem back in the mix, is there an actual competition at the inside linebacker spot, or is Jason just going to stay there and you put Nyeem on the outside? And what do you need to see from the guys behind all three of them to kind of get you the depth that you need this year? BRENT PRY: I told those guys this morning in a meeting we're very fortunate that we have multiple guys in the room that have extensive experience at both spots. You throw Brandon Bell, Brandon's played Sam, he's played Will. Jake Cooper for a young guy has played a lot at Mike and a lot at Will over the course of the fall and spring. I think that there's competition in that room because everybody wants to be the starter, and everybody wants to be the guy. We've got the versatility. Those guys are going to roll through multiple spots through camp. They're in a place that we can do that with them. We're going to train Manny Bowen some at the Will linebacker. He's been strictly a Sam to this point. Brandon Bell's going to play some at Mike linebacker. We're going to roll those guys through. We've got some experience and some maturity in the room that we feel like even though potentially the numbers aren't there, the versatility allows us to create the depth we need. We've got some subpackages that allow us to do that. So we feel really good about it. Jason's an outstanding leader, and he's got great command of the defense. Nyeem's recovery has gone really well. I'm anxious to see those guys, Brandon, and Jason, and Nyeem out there together. That's going to be a really good thing for Penn State defense. Q. Going back to the line for a second. Kevin Givens is a guy that took the world by storm in the weight room. What are you expecting of him and what are you expecting of a guy like Torrence Brown who showed us what he can do against Michigan with that hit he had on Jake Rudock. BRENT PRY: Let me say this first about Kevin. We told Kevin this morning in front of the unit, Kevin's got a lot of work to do. He had some splash plays this spring, and we were very proud of the adjustment he made. He embraced moving inside to defensive tackle. He's got a lot of work to do. He's still very raw as not inside player. He's got some great qualities. His strength, his leverage, his instincts. He's still growing. We're still trying to get him a little bigger. He's got to gain better understanding of the defense and playing in the framework of things. But we're excited about him. He's just got some work to do. He's one of those guys that's got an asterisk by his name. He's got some things he's got to handle this camp to feel better about lining up and winning with him. Torrence Brown is a little bit of an older guy. If you know Torrence at all, he's like a 30-year-old guy sitting in the room. I've known Torrence for a long time. He's an Alabama guy that we got to know in our days at Vanderbilt, and Torrence has just -- he's an old head. He's a guy that doesn't get rattled. He's very confident. He's very steady. He's very talented. Torrence was a tremendous basketball player in high school. He is healthy. He's at a better weight. We talk so much about guys getting bigger and bigger on the D-line. He needed to lose a few pounds to really be at his optimal weight to play the way he can play. He's one of those guys that hasn't played a whole lot. Had a splash play or two that we're looking potentially to have a good year. Q. During the spring one of the things we noticed was the defense was more vocal, a little more trash talking. Does that come from you? Is that their identity? How much of that is important to building an identity to a defense? BRENT PRY: I don't know. I'm not going to say trash talking. We wanted those guys to have fun this spring. I do believe practice is an opportunity where you can make mistakes, where you test the limits. We wanted to challenge more routes this spring. We kept force feeding the guys to do that. But sometimes they're going to be wrong. We wanted to make -- create an environment where they had fun, where they were loose, where they could play with their abilities and every play didn't have to be the perfect play as long as we learned from our mistakes and grow from them. The guys had fun this spring. We did take the handcuffs off a little bit and give them some freedoms. I think they kind of ran with it. We're going to be very competitive as always under Coach Franklin. And we try and create an environment that's highly competitive, and sometimes there's some talk that goes along with it. We do emphasize on the defense communication is a big-time fundamental for us, so we want them talking, not necessarily some of that, but. Q. James mentioned earlier that yourself, Moorhead and Charles kind of run respective units as head coaches would and operate as such. Could you take us through what that mentality is like and also what kind of environment that creates in a meeting room? BRENT PRY: I keep getting asked the question what's changed for me, what's different? I've always operated whether I've been a coordinator or a position coach, and it didn't matter if it was coaching the D-line, DBs or linebackers, it's always been the same. You're the leader of that group, of that room. What changed for me when I became the coordinator, yes, there's some leadership things in that staff room with the defensive staff, some decisions that ultimately rest with me. There is some planning that takes place that is initiated by me. But probably the biggest adjustment is instead of 12 or 13 guys that I'm leading, it's a room full of 45. And I think under Coach, that's the climate he promotes. Be the head coach at your position, whether that's linebacker, whether that's receivers, whether that's the entire defense or entire offense or teams. Leadership is such an important component. And I think that's a big part of our jobs as coaches is to lead those guys. So I think that's absolutely right. Q. James talked about how a lot of players have lobbied for your promotion to defensive coordinator. What does that personally mean to you? How much is building relationships with these did kids, how important is that? BRENT PRY: That's a really easy question to answer. That's why I do it. That's why so many of the guys I know in this business do it, it's the relationships with these guys. It's the relationships with the rest of the staff. I tried to not just be the linebacker coach. I tried to have relationships with all the guys, not just on defense, and I think that's important to their overall experience in the program. So I'm flattered that those guys felt that way. That's not always a good thing. Sometimes if you're too likeable it means you're not hard enough on those guys. But we try to find a balance. I love the relationships. It's certainly an awesome part of this profession, getting to know these young guys. Q. How much difference does it make where Jason and Nyeem lineup as far as who is the like and whose not? And how will you determine who goes where? BRENT PRY: I've mentioned a lot it's so great, the versatility and things, but it is going to ultimately be an important decision who lines up at Mike, commands the defense. You go back to 2014 and a job that Mike Hull did, and that's what we're looking for. That's kind of the model. A guy that can do what Mike did for us. Each year it's a little bit different. Guys bring different qualities to the table that are strengths. And Jason's got some strengths that you just don't find everywhere in his leadership, his command, his confidence, his knowledge of the game. The awesome thing in the room is that Nyeem's got a lot of those same qualities. So it is an important decision. I think there will be some separation, there will be some delineation between those guys in what takes place. I want to say this; to me there are some other guys in that room that are going to roll through that spot. Jake Cooper, who I'm really excited about. It's a good group. And it will be, as a coaching staff, working through putting those guys, putting the guys in the best position, that's part of what we get paid for. Q. (Indiscernible)? BRENT PRY: He may roll through there some. Yeah, we've talked about him learning it. He's ready for that. I don't know that it's a necessity right now, but I wouldn't rule that out. Q. How would you assess the secondary? Where does it have to get better in your mind? BRENT PRY: I think we're in a pretty good place. We're trying to still find a guy or two from a depth perspective. But we've got great candidates. We've got a large pool that there's four or five guys that we're trying to find a fourth corner. There are four or five guys we're trying to find a third and fourth safety. There's a lot of good competition that's going to take place in camp. I feel very good about our secondary. The way we challenged routes in the spring, that we got to more balls, we are far more aggressive. I think those guys are playing with some real confidence back there. Marcus and Malik have played a lot of football. Grant Haley's played a lot of football. Christian Campbell's played a fair amount. John Reid's played a fair amount. You know, there are some quality depth there, there are some guys there. A big part of playing in the secondary to me is confidence, and we've got a confident group. We wanted to challenge more. We wanted hands on more balls. That was the area we thought we needed to improve on, and at least in the spring. We feel like we've made some progress there. We've got to continue it through camp and into the season obviously. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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