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PURDUE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 25, 2016

Gerad Parker

West Lafayette, Indiana

COACH PARKER: Thank you. Good to see everyone again. Obviously we're heading into another big week. But looking back on last week, certainly a whirlwind for everybody. I can't start without thanking again the administration here top to bottom and how everybody handled this deal first class, and making sure I didn't miss anything, and prepping me to get through a very difficult week, and with a lot of appointments.

So thanks to the administration and everybody behind the scenes getting me to everything. As well as, thanks to our staff for handling a very tough situation and a tough week, as well, and for preparing for a No. 8 opponent.

And then lastly to our players, who went out last week, accepted a lot of change, a lot of permanent change, a lot of new change with how we did things; and went out on Saturday and had fun playing a kid's game. Ran around and competed their tails off, fought for four quarters and put something out there that we can be proud of both as a community and as an organization of football.

That being said, we fell short. We didn't finish it in the fourth quarter and kind of lost some steam and didn't find a way to finish the football game. So we've got to find a way to do that. We have five weeks left obviously to put our best foot forward in allowing this football team and these seniors to go out again with, like we said last week, something they will be very proud of.

So we're focusing this week all on taking the next step, find a way to get these guys to believe and know that they can win football games in this league and move forward, and we're going to do our best to do that.

We play a Penn State team that is getting to that point in their program right now. They have won three in a row. Obviously Coach Franklin, I don't know him personally but I've kept up with him from my days in recruiting the Nashville area. We know what he's done and what he's about, and they just had a program-changing win for themselves and feeling on top of the world, I'm sure, with a lot of momentum coming into our game.

We have got our hands full once again in a team that just beat the No. 2 team in the country, and to do that, we are going to have to do things a little bit faster and a little bit better and continue to execute a little bit better and improve our mental approach to this, as well, to get to a point where we know where we want to be.

With that said, we're excited about another opportunity and another week, and I'll open up to any questions you all may have.

Q. Was there a biggest lesson learned in your first game as a head coach?
COACH PARKER: Good question. There's so many lessons. I don't know if there was a big one. It didn't feel as weird as what I thought it would.

But it definitely takes you away from -- you're so used to being an assistant coach and dealing with my guys, I didn't realize how many things you have to be aware of during a game to manage a game for your whole organization.

So I couldn't say thanks enough honestly to the referees and to the officials out there and our staff, the way we communicated to get us through the game and have some help on some stuff I had never done before.

So I think probably the biggest lesson learned would be just managing the whole game and all that it entails and all that it takes to make the decisions during the game.

Q. How do you avoid a letdown after that emotional high?
COACH PARKER: Good point. Well, we can't. I think I told somebody the other day: This is a very emotional game, and guys and teams that play at a high level are able to find that emotion each and every week; and that's something that we've got to understand here and do better here to get where we need to go.

So to answer your question, we did expend a lot of energy; so did Penn State and so did all the other great football teams in the country to go win football games and compete at the highest level.

We'll find a way to do that. That's my job, to push that message and make sure that we do that for our home fans, as they come out to support us on Saturday.

Q. Penn State sacked the Ohio State quarterback six times and had 11 tackles for loss. How concerning is that and how do you avoid that?
COACH PARKER: Good question. That's what their defense does a great job of. They are very disruptive. They play on your line, on your side of the line of scrimmage. They are highly ranked in both tackles for loss and sacks, like you mentioned.

So how do you combat that? You have got to be sound in your protections. Your football has got to be prepared on offense to protect what they are going to bring at us. And we have got to get into attack mode and play on their line of scrimmage and find ways to get the ball and stay on the field and manage what they are going to try to do in their disruption.

So it's a huge, huge challenge for us. They have been great at it, and we have got to continue to manage it and be better at it.

And then on the flipside of that, our defense has also got to be disruptive and play on their line of scrimmage and see who does it better on Saturday.

Q. Last thing from me, Penn State's special teams, blocked a punt, blocked a fold goal. Not that you wouldn't work on special teams anyway, do you put even more emphasis given what Penn State did to Ohio State?
COACH PARKER: Well, you certainly take notice. It changed the football game last Saturday night and they won a football game in great part because of that.

So you pay attention to it, but like you said, we're going to pay attention to it every week. We've got to be sound in our special teams and make impact plays, and try to do what they did to Ohio State to them, or at least make sure we don't do anything that's going to make us lose the game.

So we'll pay great attention to it and make sure our effort on special teams matches theirs or exceeds it.

Q. On the defensive side of the ball, what's your No. 1 priority about Penn State? Last week Urban Meyer said his No. 1 priority was stopping Saquon Barkley.
COACH PARKER: Well, you could not ignore how good of a player he is, there's no question about it.

I think that any time you deal with what they are able to do in the run game and put you in space, creates problems for everybody, and they have done a good job of that. That's why they have put off three in a row and doing what they are doing offensively.

But in my opinion, the full run game, it includes their quarterback and the run game and the running back. So we've got to do a good job defending what they do well and continue to push to find ways to do that.

I think if you can -- any time you find a way to attack what they do the best, it gives you greater chances to make you at least have to CB and see less runs and other things to try to stop them from doing what they do, and they do it well. It's a huge challenge, and there's no doubt, that's got to be the focus.

Q. How do you balance stopping the run game with McSorley and balancing that with a quarterback who is throwing the ball well to receivers -- you could have too many one-on-one matchups on the edge that could be taken advantage of.
COACH PARKER: Sure. You're a Penn State fan. Those are good questions.

Any time you begin to get balanced and do what they are able to do, there's always a struggle. We certainly wouldn't get into X's and O's and tell you how we're going to do that. But we're going to have a great plan to put our guys in the best position possible to try to defend both.

But there's not doubt, just like we played Nebraska last week: You get a guy that's able throw it and get confidence the way he's throwing the ball down the field right now, and you're able to get him involved in the run game and get off the mark, you've got -- you've got yourself an issue.

So we've got our hands full and they are doing a heck of a job, and it is the reason they are in the position they are right now.

Q. After the game on Saturday, David Blough said your message to them was kind of a, let-it-ride, just-go-out-there-and-play-and-have-fun. And he said situations like the team was in, I thought it was fascinating the way he worded it, was situations can bring out the coward in a man or it can bring out the man in the man. Is that something you're trying to get these guys to think more about and just let it ride?
COACH PARKER: Sure. Absolutely. We talked about it all last week. We'll continue to talk about it this week.

How you respond on the football field in a very tough environment is exactly how you're going to respond as main in real life. Because life's tough, too, as we all know.

So we're just trying to put some true reality to this and who you are, what you put on film, says a lot about who you are going to be and who you are off the field, and that's a fact.

So any time you can talk to them in reality and tell them, hey, who you are, what you put on film is what you are; not what you talk about you're doing, not who you think you are. What you put on film is what you are.

We have a tremendous responsibility as coaches and those players have a tremendous opportunity to whatever they put out there; it creates some changes to other people's lives, how they play and how they approach the game, how our staff, our administration, this school, our fans, feel about how we play, matters.

How we approach this game and how hard we play, matters, and it affects people. People want that. They need that. It inspires people on and off the field and we are going to continue to do that.

Q. Kind of piggybacking off of that, it's new now, but during your four years here, I guess you would have to acknowledge that one of the most frustrating things is, you guys will play a really good game; I thought your effort at Nebraska was great. But the problem has been following that up with the next week, consistency in effort and emotion, it seems like. That's an intangible, but how do you coach that?
COACH PARKER: Sure. Good question. You know what, I think it is a complete mental approach and what you expect in the week and a complete mental approach to what we're doing.

It is a little bit of -- there has not been much success. So you give all this effort and emotion, you don't get the results you want, and men of low character or whatever, say: Well, that didn't work, maybe in the past; I'm not willing to give all of that again. I didn't see the prize, the cookie, we'll talk about. Everybody wants instant results.

And in our society, that's what you say. If we played, you deserve a reward. Well, it's not like that. You have to give -- if you don't win, that means you've got to do it all the same way you did it, and better, and you're still not guaranteed it.

But if you don't do it the other way, you're going to get a poor effort and you're going to get beat bad and you're not going to feel good about anything.

I think for our guys, it's understanding, hey, we are closer to it. Now you've just got to double up. You've got to double up. We've got to move faster today during practice. We have to be smarter in what we're doing. We've got to study more. We've got to do all these things better and buy in better to get us to a point where we are then going to see some of those rewards and that's why they keep going.

Q. I watched the Ohio State, Penn State game and you can't help, when you have the ball, noticing where 90, 94 and 40 are, the two ends and then 40. That's an impressive group. Again, you're not going to give away your secrets, but you have to be aware of those three guys, don't you.
COACH PARKER: Oh, absolutely. I think that the word is disruptive. They play vertical up the field. They create issues on both tackles. And you're right, when he runs around and makes a bunch of plays, and they are getting those guys back and golf healthy; they play smart in the back end. They do a great job there tackling the football; all those things that you say about good Big Ten defenses.

But they are disruptive, they bring pressure, they disguise pressure very well and put you in situations to have negative plays, so you're stuck with second- and third-and-longs.

Q. I know you told us last week, you don't like to talk about injuries. But a lot of people are interested, might there be a chance that Jake returns to play this week?
COACH PARKER: Yeah, there's a chance.

Q. How good is that chance?
COACH PARKER: Hopefully a really good chance.

Q. Speaking of Jake and the defense, I thought this was probably the best half that the defense played the first half, forcing a couple three-and-outs. What was different in that? Was it emotion or was it scheme? What do you attribute that to?
COACH PARKER: I would say both. I would say both. I think a good job of scheme and finding a way to win that game. We're going to just keep on working as three areas and three phases of our game. What do we have to do to put our kids in the best position to win this game.

Not what we've done in the past. What do we have to do to win this game, scheme-wise, and then the one thing that cannot be changed and I hear you loud and clear; it cannot be changed of how hard and how much emotion we're going to play. We can't change that. That's not going to change. It can't change. And then we have to put our guys in the best positive possible to win football games.

Defensive staff did a great job. Players did a great job. Their energy didn't stop. Sure, we gave up some things, but you know what, their energy was good, they communicated good, they ran on, ran off and played to the highest level. All great defenses, it starts with passion and playing with emotion.

Q. Lorenzo Neal had a tough job, he had to fill in for a guy, who is a possible -- Jake Replorgle might be in the NFL next year, and he's just a freshman. What do you think about the way he stepped up?
COACH PARKER: You know what, it's awesome seeing guys like him that our young guys -- and our leadership from our seniors and our captains has been great. But some of those young guys that are getting a chance to feel alive and do some things, he was one of them.

Lorenzo played his tail off, even when he got banged up a little bit, he comes off the field in a hurry. He wants to go back out and do everything he can to help this defense and this football team win games and get where they want to be, and I thought he battled his tail off and it's good for his future.

Q. You talking about playing with emotion on defense, I thought there were several pretty big hits. I think Da'Wan Hunte had a nice one; Leroy Clark had a nice one. I think Coach Hazell used to give awards for biggest hits and stuff like that. Is that something you're continuing and can you tell me anything about that?
COACH PARKER: Sure, you'll certainly notice -- got to continue to do it more. We won't give out any awards for when we lose games, you know. When we win games, there will be plenty of awards and all those things.

But when we lose games, we won't give out awards. When we win them, we will. The biggest prize is obviously the win.

We did change up our practice schedule and those things Sunday night. We'll always have a beautiful Sunday dinner where we'll eat with families and friends and our players and share some time together no matter what happens.

Q. Did you think that any of the physicality came from some of the things you did in practice? I know you said you introduced more physicality, on I think Tuesdays. Is that part of it, do you think?
COACH PARKER: Yeah, it's a little bit of a bloody Tuesday, per se, you know. We're going to practice fast and be smart in all those things, but we're playing a game of football, you note. We changed up our schedule. We went out last night and we were out, practiced under the lights, was awesome.

We'll come out again today and we'll go really, really fast and we'll be physical and be smart in doing it. I sure hope that was a piece of it. And we're not going to operate under the thing of, well, Tuesday we're still little bits. It's Tuesday and we're going to work and we're going to go fast.

Q. How about on the offensive side of the ball? Seems like the run game hasn't been there. What do you think some of the problems have been in the running game?
COACH PARKER: We're struggling to get big runs, you know, we are. And any time you don't pop some big runs, it makes it tough, you know.

I thought the first half we did a really good job of managing and staying close enough to balance as you could, but still, at the end of the day, we didn't have any big ones. We had two big plays in the passing game that resulted in touchdowns and after that we kind of stalled out.

So we have to find a way to continue to push to get our run game involved but also get big plays and find a way to finish some drives to put points up. We all talked as a staff, one of the biggest drives that probably gets forgotten a little bit is the last drive before the half. If we are able to go finish that drive, when we the fourth and one, and go up two scores that, game looks a little bit different and even better going into half.

Q. How important is balance to you? Is that something that is really important or can you just say, our passing game is so good that we don't necessarily need to have a strong running game.
COACH PARKER: You've got to have balance, and balance can be looked at several different ways. You also have to be extremely smart in how you approach, get your playmakers the ball; get it to them how we need to get it to them, whether it's run or pass, and find a way to put up enough points to win.

So to me, that's balance. We'll have to be smart with how we do that and attack but we have to attack and score points and that's balance.

Q. I know you don't like to talk about personnel, but could you see Markell Jones taking more snaps under center? Do you think that that might happen this week, get a couple more reps there?
COACH PARKER: (Chuckles) may be.

Q. As you broke down the film this week, what things need to be replicated as far as the success you guys had stopping the run, especially I guess through the first three quarters of that game?
COACH PARKER: An unbelievable effort by our guys, our D-linemen up front, right, and then our second-level guys, and then it pieces together by how you get safety help.

But it all starts up front. Our guys, Coach Melvin did a heck of a job with those guys. We were disruptive and played on their line of scrimmage.

So it's all going to have to start with us being disruptive at the line of scrimmage with our D-Line, and then having guys fill the spots they have got to fill, fit the gaps we're supposed to fit, and if we do that, we're going to be okay at the second and third level to not let the big run, a couple of those big ones that came out, so we can prevent them from coming out.

So it's a full defensive effort. I'm not just giving an answer -- but we were disruptive at the line of scrimmage. That starts the story. Everybody else fits right, and you've got a defense that's swarming around and stopping the run.

Q. Do you credit that to just taking what seems to be a more aggressive approach schematically that day, or is that just playing harder?
COACH PARKER: Right. I think both. And again, I'm not avoiding your question.

We played harder. We played with passion, all those things, you've got to have that every week. But I thought also we were more aggressive, and we have to be. We have nothing to lose, everything to gain. We have to be extremely aggressive in our approach. I think you saw that from me and some of the decisions we made, and during the game and managed it, and that will not change.

Q. The struggles of the run game, how is the offensive line situation playing into not being able to get as much going with the run game?
COACH PARKER: Sure, I mean, our guys, we have got some warriors that have battled and battled and battled and played injured, you know, and we appreciate their effort no, doubt about it.

And then those two senior guards, tackle, and all those things -- we've had some guys play banged up. That's this league. As I tell the guys all the time, not kidding, society doesn't care. Our opponent won't care if we are banged up or healthy. But there is no question we have had to patch some things together up front, and it's hurt us, you know, at times.

But nobody is going to talk about that and care. We've got to find a way to piece it together, keep it together and get guys like Michael Mendez to get better from week one to week two in the amount he had to play and find a way to get this thing going.

Q. What were you impressions of how Mendez played?
COACH PARKER: I thought he played well. To have to go in there and do what he did against the No. 8 team in the country, and do it at the level he did it, is a great, great start for him; and now get more grit, expect more, play at a higher level each week. That's what we have to do instead of being satisfied and somebody is patting us on the back saying, hey, good job, we've got to go.

Q. Seems like Eddy Wilson, he's been doing some good things in terms of getting penetration and things like that but he's walking this line between being aggressive and being reckless I guess. What are you seeing from him right now in that regard of being just sort of on that edge?
COACH PARKER: Sure. He is on that edge and we're getting -- I've communicated great with Eddy since last week happened, Coach Melvin has continued to do a great job coaching him and we've got to do a great job with Eddy across the board of continuing to be a guy we can count on in every phase of his life, not just football, and I think he's starting to get that.

I think there's a telltale sign beside that, not only on the field, but off of it, and taking care of everything he does academically and treatment and eating when he's supposed to eat, all those things and all our guys are. All our guys are learning how important that is, because it's the right thing to do.

And I think as Eddy continues to pair the right thing to do in every phase, you're going to see a guy that's going to continue to get more polished and more polished and be a great football player here.

Q. What do you communicate as a coach, especially in terms of defensive players, in sort of walking that line, because you only want aggression to a point, when it starts to lead to penalties and stuff, that's obviously --
COACH PARKER: Yeah, there's no doubt, it is a very, very, very -- it's like anything, winning. There's a very little difference between winning a football game and losing it sometimes.

It's the same thing with how we approach and penalties and those things. You've got to go; we want you guys to play angry and you've got to get to the football. But you've also got to be able to play with a controlled rage and know you have to play within the 202 pages of that rule book.

Q. Does it mean something to be coming back home? Seemed like when the coaching change happens, you get sort of a swell of support from I think the fan base, it seemed like it, and now this will be the first chance to come home and play in front of those people. Does that mean something the to team?
COACH PARKER: Yes, it better, and it has to. I think we got to have an understanding of everyone's frustration from what's gone on to our own frustrations of what's gone on, and there's got to be a tremendous pride about us playing in Ross-Ade. And we sure hope, also, that we get a tremendous amount of support for our seniors and all those for the effort we give and we'll continue to give to be supported out there in Ross-Ade, too.

Q. To go back to the run defense, did it make a difference to have Ja-Whaun Bentley back in the middle of things on Saturday?
COACH PARKER: Sure, anytime a physical presence like that, and a guy that plays hard and is respected, the team captain, it has to help.

Q. They have kind of established the passion they played with at Nebraska. How do you sustain it? Seems like those are two different things?
COACH PARKER: Absolutely. They certainly are. Nobody is going to hold themselves more accountable for the product we put on this field Saturday at noon than I will. And I believe that and feel that with every piece of my being; that how we play Saturday is a direct reflection of my responsibilities as now the head coach to make sure our football team runs around and has more passion than anybody else on the field.

Q. You had mentioned earlier, kind of taking the next step and kind of said it about speed and being better in practice. What does that look like on Saturday? Is it straight-up a win is the next step or is it competing harder?
COACH PARKER: Right. It's a win. You know, there's no doubt about it. We have to expect and believe that good things are going to happen. You have to; you all have to; our fans have to; the administration has to; I have to; the staff has to; my wife has to; everybody has to expect good things to happen. If you don't, they are not going to, you know. And that means we need to win football games here.

Everybody wants to, so that looks like us talking about winning football games and finishing football games, believing we're going to do those, instead of hoping.

Q. Was it a process or has it been a process to try to get the guys to believe?
COACH PARKER: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I would imagine that always is, until you do things and break through as people say and all those thing. I think it always is a process.

So it will continue to be. But it's my job right now to make, how close can we get to that point of our mental game, what can our mind do to help us get to that point.

Q. You mentioned having guys do the right thing. How much have you cracked down, if that's the right term, on guys making sure guys are in class, or those things that we don't see?
COACH PARKER: Yeah, just class and food, mandatory meals and all the little stuff, training, going to the training room. It's a slippery slope right now. I'm really, I guess you asked players, in normal circumstances, it's kind of been pretty easy for me to handle those.

So I'm trying to be very aware of how they are feeling right now under these circumstances. But I also had a good friend tell me, and somebody I trust, as well as just myself, everybody says be yourself. Well, for the next five weeks, I'm the head football coach here with an interim thing in front of it. So I want to make sure if I leave here in five weeks that these players still respect who I am, what I'm about as a coach, and that usually involves handling their discipline.

With that has been a respect to know, hey, I don't want to go crazy on you. That's not really fair, either, and turn it too bad. But hey, we are going to do some stuff to keep you accountable. Not going to turn a blind eye. Because it's not -- again, I just echoed to the guys, it isn't the right thing for to you do, regardless of what happens.

The right thing to do to prepare you for your next staff or for whatever happens to me, whatever, we have to prepare you for what's going to be. You're going to be held accountable, right, for everything you do.

So we're going to do the same thing here, but maybe the punishment isn't as hard and as tough as what it sometimes would normally be, but there's a reminder of it. And then as we continue to keep sampling that, it will get tougher and tougher if we get guys that turn away from us.

Q. Are Brandon Roberts and David Rose still on the team?
COACH PARKER: Yes.

Q. Have they been practicing?
COACH PARKER: They have not. It's all an internal deal and handled over there, but they are still involved in our football team.

Q. Why did you move the off-day?
COACH PARKER: We and I thought that it was important to change some stuff. And in looking at change, too, we thought it gave us a better opportunity to be prepared for the week.

So now Sunday, gives the coaches some time to watch and prepare for the next game, then get a full Monday to do the same thing uninterrupted, instead of trying to throw it out on a Sunday where you're not prepared to do anything for the next week's opponent.

So it essentially becomes a day where you do a little bit of physical stuff, try to flush out the game, do all those things, but you're not doing any preparation for next week's game.

So what you do, in our mind, in my mind was you gain another day of game planning and a real day. So what's happened is Sunday, off-day, we eat together, enjoy each other a little bit, get them through.

Monday, we game plan all day, and you go out tomorrow, last night, and you get a chance to actually talk about your base game plan in all three phases. So you gain a game plan day.

So on that Tuesday when you say, you know, that wasn't so clean. Well, you just installed a whole new game plan. And you're expecting everybody to go out -- your desire as a coach to say, well, what's wrong, we just installed.

So now we are able to have that install ahead of them. So you're hoping Tuesday, or we'd better hope and we'd better make it Tuesday, a whole lot to be cleaner, because it's already installed and then we keep pushing for some momentum.

Q. Will you continue to go on Monday night?
COACH PARKER: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we'll go on Monday night under the lights preparing for some cold weather as we go down the stretch, so we'll go outside and get used to playing in cold air, and the lights help provide a little bit of juice, because who doesn't like to play under the lights.

Q. Evaluate the play of your defensive backs; specifically, Hunte, Cason and Hayes.
COACH PARKER: Sure. You know, with anything, any time -- that's why it's a tough profession out there. Any time you give up one down the field, everybody in the world knows you did. And we certainly don't want to be giving up the balls we did down the field in some scenarios and all those things.

These guys are going to have to continue to be more aggressive. But I will say this: I think they are starting to develop a mentality of getting tough at the line of scrimmage. You watch up-and-down, every Big Ten defense, those guys are up in your face, grabbing, holding, doing everything they can.

It's a physical league out there. I think they are starting to understand that, get better at it. I know Coach Johnson and Coach Els are pushing them too, and when the ball is in the air, we have to continue to make better plays on it.

But I did like that part of it, and certainly I felt like Da-Wan showed up in the run game and breaking on balls to get us some juice and play at a level; we think that's what he gives us and he has got to continue to do more of it.

Q. Did Nova (ph) not make the trip because of the injury still?
COACH PARKER: Yes, he did not travel because of injury.

Q. You mentioned earlier the Penn State run game will put you in space. What do you mean?
COACH PARKER: Well, meaning, they are going to put us in what we would call like detached tight ends. They are going to flex those guys out, put you in space and just put some -- just put air in the defense, if you will, you know, and allowed to go play their zone read game and so some things, that's always a cat-and-mouse game. That's what they do well.

Q. Will Malik Kimbrough continue to return punts for you?
COACH PARKER: Great question. (Laughter).

Q. Would you like to answer?
COACH PARKER: I would not. But it's a good question.

Q. Are you still going to be doing the 211 session?
COACH PARKER: We are not.

Q. Why did you bring D.J. Knox on the road?
COACH PARKER: Because D.J. loves football, loves Purdue, he's got great energy, and we and I want to surround ourselves with that all the time as much as he can. He deserved it.

Q. Your speech before the game -- some cried and that was in the hotel before you got there. Why do you think it's important to be vulnerable, for lack of a better term? Why did you share your story with those guys?
COACH PARKER: Yeah, you know what, because that's what's got me in front of you guys right now. I just think if you can be real and you be those guys, you do anything you put your mind to.

There is a bunch of people, and I didn't have it all. My parents worked their tails off, and I had everything we needed growing up. But there's a lot of people from when you're from where we were from that just, "Ah, you're not going to" -- every morning you wake up, when you hear that enough, you either decide, you know what, we'll see, you know what I mean.

I think that tell them that story, these guys have come from even worse situations and they want to feel that, and you want to make sure that's how they respond. I told them during that time we've got to spend together, we need more men in this world that people admire; that want to lead and step out.

I'm okay with telling you guys we need to play really, really hard on Saturday. I need to tell you that. We need to tell our team that. Everybody around this program needs to talk about that and not talk the other way and be negative. We need it talk about it and expect it.

And if I try to hide about how we need to play and how hard we need to play and how passionate we need to play, we're not going to get where we need to go. I think if you tell those guys that and they expect that, then you get a result you're going to be proud of.

Q. Talked a little bit about the run offense and Penn State's pass rush. Those two things could be related a little bit, right, if you guys can get the running game going a little bit better this week, that would help negate what they do from a rush point of view.
COACH PARKER: You saw it in the last drive in the game they played Saturday night. When it becomes a pass-pass world and those two guys on the edge pin their ears back, that's trouble. That was hard to watch, you know.

There is no doubt, we have got to find a way to slow those guys down and turn this into a game we can manage up front and then we're able to do what we need to do in both phases.

Q. This is probably true a little bit for all quarterbacks but after David got hit, what looked to me late by 91, his numbers dropped dramatically. Is that something that he needs to get better -- and this is easier said than done obviously but get better at being able to brush off and forget about and still be able to hang in there?
COACH PARKER: Sure, I would imagine, you know what it's something I didn't even really pay attention to. I just saw he took one. He knows. That guy stood in the fire long enough now and is starting to kind of get under his legs to know what's going on. He knows where we've got to be better back there.

He's in a -- he's in a, these-lights-are-on-me-now; that's an every day life for him. The guy can handle it, and he'll continue to play at a high level and play at an even higher level to get us to where we need to be. This football team trusts him, I trust him, and I know we're going to continue to get him in the point where he will continue to perform under the fire.

Q. You mentioned last week all the people you had heard from after you got the job and before you played the game. Have you since the game heard from people, whether it be fans or others about what you guys were able to do even in the loss on Saturday?
COACH PARKER: Sure. You know what, a ton of people have reached out after the game and just hearing from Coach Brooks got in touch with me, a guy that I just respect so much and what he did for my career; both playing career and at the end of it to get started.

Hearing him come back and those guys -- you know, I told the staff, anybody would be lying, if we would have went out and not played hard and not did what we did, you guys would not be very happy right now; the community wouldn't, our fans wouldn't, our administration, nobody would be happy.

We made a step. I think everybody would shake their head at that, let's be honest, right. We made a step. Now we have to go win a game and put it all together, no question.

But I think everybody felt that, and to hear that people noticed, the people I talked to. You know, I could not believe the people that have reached out since, and it's funny how this world works and I told the guys this last night.

I mean, I talked to Dabo Swinney yesterday, you know. And I'm 35 years old, but he is at the peak of his career, and that man took 26 minutes out of his Monday and talked to me, you know, and watched our game, you know.

And for him to do that -- and I don't say that for attention, that's not -- and I told the guys that last night. I don't care, he didn't know who he was or whatever, but he knows who our team is now. He watched how hard we played, and for him to reach out and do that in a busy time for him, and what he's going through and spend 26 minutes to talk about the process for what he had to go through and all those things, shows you why Clemson is where they are and why his guys believe in where he's at. Because they do, and after talking to him for 26 minutes, I can tell you right now, there is no accident.

Q. After talking to him, do you feel like you're on the right track with things you're doing?
COACH PARKER: I do. I do. You know, there's a lot of what he said that we've done and you check them off, and then there are some other things, you're like, wow, you know what I mean, some other things, just little stuff.

But more about how he's done it and the belief he had to change around there. A lot of it is unbelievably about the mental approach of it that we started on last week that we have to continue to, and then C.J. Spiller (ph) helps, too, what he started. It's a personnel-driven game, too, you know what I mean. So we've got to do our job to make sure you continue to do that part, too.

But the parts, the pieces that we changed and everything, we're kind of right on track, and that was good to know and I don't have to go back and go like, oh, no, missed the ball or something.

Q. You sort of made an appeal to Purdue fans, I felt like, on the Thursday night radio show, to come out and support the guys and things, Nathan asked earlier, but do you feel, do you get a sense from just fans that they are sort of hungry for a team that is going to do what you guys did on Saturday and do that kind of -- or play that way regularly?
COACH PARKER: Sure. I felt that way. I'm still a fan, too, a fan of football and all those things. We have a human element to us. I think that the fans felt that and it was good they felt it.

I'm sure they are frustrated and it's been tough. It's been tough on all of us. Tough on them and we recognize that from both sides, and all we're doing is trying to put our guys in the best position possible to be proud of something, especially our seniors, at the end of all this, but also our fans.

You know, everybody around them that's connected to the program. We want to give you guys something that you're proud of; that we can step away from this and look back on over Christmas and say, you know what, I'll go to war with that.

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