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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 26, 2016Jason CabindaUniversity Park, Pennsylvania Q. Jason, just kind of curious where you are right now in terms of health-wise, are you at 100 percent? How did you feel after Saturday's game health-wise. And what does it mean to you to be back? JASON CABINDA: Yeah, I mean, I feel good. Obviously playing with the club, but besides that, I feel really good. I think the team did really good plays from that perspective, and got a lot of guys back which was great. But in terms of how we are right now, I this I we're just looking on to Purdue. Went and put Ohio State film on, made game corrections we needed to make. I think that's something that gets lost in big wins is mistakes were made and there were a lot made during that game and we got better off that film and put that Purdue film on and on to Purdue and our goal is just to be 1-0 this week. Q. Was it difficult playing with the club at all, and also some of the players after the game, saying it was kind of funny that after every big tackle you made -- the thumbs up. JASON CABINDA: The thumbs up was funny. I actually just thought about that about ten minutes before the game. Jake Cooper made the suggestion I do it, so it was funny. What was the first part of your question? Oh, yeah, from a group perspective, it can be kind of tough -- the thumb can be tough at times. But just can't think about it. Just kind of play and what happens, happens. Q. I assume you're not on a snap count of any kind this week, are you? JASON CABINDA: I think that's up to Franklin. Q. He said you were won 25, 30 plays maybe but then got hot in the game. What was your mentality going into the game knowing, I might have a shot if I play well, to play more? What was your mind-set? Did you kind of guy into what they were saying? JASON CABINDA: For me, just take advantage of the snaps that you're given and that can be anything, and with football, you know, comes injuries obviously, when you can be a player that only gets ten or 15 snaps because of injury, all of a sudden, now playing 50 to 60 snaps a game. You know what I mean, I think you've just got to make the most of your snaps every single game and make the most of your opportunities. That's what I try to do, go out and play full speed, and if I'm going to make a mistake, hopefully making up for it with effort. Q. First of all, when did you know you guys were on to a special night Saturday, and Coach mentioned last week that you were chomping at the bit to get back. Can you give us a time line of your expectations from after you got hurt and what you were in for, coming back for a game, or how did expectations change before you hit the field again? JASON CABINDA: Obviously it was tough. I was out for about a month or so, and I was looking at being out about four weeks. I was looking to come back against the Maryland game. I had a little bit of a setback and ended up not coming back till Ohio State. But for me, I just couldn't wait to get back out there, and seeing the young guys making the kind of plays they were making, Brandon Smith was huge. Jake Cooper stepped up, Cam Brown, Manny Bowen was tough on them. All of those guys so willing to learn and so willing to step up and make big plays. I think that's the biggest thing about our room and the linebacker room is the pride of the linebacker is just so great. We all know that the expectation doesn't change regardless of who is in there, if it's a first-string guy or a second-string, it doesn't matter. The expectations stay the same on how you need to play, us linebackers, it's going to stay the same. It's how you it needs to be. You know, for us I would say it's a special night, maybe might not be the way to put it. I think we are with the mind-set that we expected to win that game. That's how it was. There was no fluke or anything like that for us. Week-in and week-out, we expect to win the games as long as we execute and that's what we wanted to do. You know they came up, made some plays, were down I think it was 12-0 and Gavin had that big catch before the half, and that was huge, kept us in the game. But I think the biggest thing for us was you could kind of just feel a confidence as the games went on with just more and more, and when the defense is playing well and the offense started picking things well and got them a touchdown. For us, it wasn't necessarily a specific play that led to the so-called special night. But just the fact that we all expected to win, it's really the mind-set. We expected to win. We played hard and we made enough plays to win the game and that's what's most important. Q. What has been the biggest difference you've seen playing with the younger guys from the beginning of the season to you coming back this past week? JASON CABINDA: I think for me it's got to be confidence. It's tough, being in there as a young guy and not getting a whole lot of reps, so kind of find your confidence. From high school, you kind of go from being that guy and making a ton of plays -- once you get to college again. When you're young, you have a lot of reps on the field and it's hard to get that same confidence that you had high school. You kind of saw that in a lot of guys, and Manny Bowen started coming into his own at beginning of the season, Jake Cooper, Brandon Smith, he started coming into his own, as well. But you coe from a confidence aspect, see that, and even along the defensive line with Kevin Givens and Rob Windsor and those guys, you start to see a whole lot of guys being more confident and kind of get back to their high school form. I think it was just a matter of having that veteran presence back. That gives a lot of confidence, as well. Me being able to be back and put guys where they need to be and command our defense again felt awesome. Q. First time since you've been here that Penn State's ranked in the Top-25. What is the significance of that and how do you find that out, on Twitter or something like that? JASON CABINDA: Yeah, I just found out from Twitter that the pole had came out and ranked us at 24. But for me, it just remind me of kind of why I came here, really, was to the team get back to where it needs to be. We're not there; taking this thing one week at a time. But for me, I think it's huge and it's good to see and know kind of where this program is going and what direction we're heading in. Q. I was wondering about Brandon Bell. After the game I had heard a few things, like he had been the one that was pep talking people, manage about dogs in a fight, and I think you had said after the game he had told you that like he -- don't like be crying about it because this wasn't a fluke or whatever. But then I also heard he was saying that he had told you guys before the game that he was nervous about his like individual play. And I just kind of wanted to ask, is that sort of his personality, like he has every faith in you guys but can get nervous about himself sometimes? JASON CABINDA: Yeah, I think that's human nature in a lot of guys. Being that B was out there for a minute there, too, seeing him and how he was in the field by himself and how he was going to play, but also expressing his confidence in all his teammates. That's what it's all about. We play for each other. And when you do, and when you go through adversity like we go through, you know, from a workout standpoint, from everything this program has been through, you get so close. To me it makes it so much easier to play with confidence knowing that your brother has your back and I think that's really what he's trying to express there. And the comments with the emotional stuff and all that kind of stuff is kind of what I was trying to reiterate, we were in the mind-set that we were going to win that game. To a lot of people, it may have been a shock. To us, that was our expectation; that was what was supposed to happen. Q. I wanted to ask you about the one-game-at-a-time mantra, the one week at a time. A lot of fans and media are the exact opposite, where they look at the full schedule and everything and a lot of times when we hear the one-game-at-a-time thing, we tend to -- not blow it off but look past it. JASON CABINDA: Cliché. No doubt about it. Q. What does it take to have your team buy into that as much as it seems that you have? JASON CABINDA: Yeah, like I said, it's cliché but it's so necessary, because you can't look beyond. It's as simple as that. Right now, all the focus is on Purdue and for us, it's a Super Bowl every single week because the next game is our Super Bowl, it's as simple as that. I think for us, taking that mentality and knowing that whatever you did the week before kind of isn't enough. Whatever amount of film you watched last week or extra work you may have put in last week isn't enough for this week because we have to grow as a team and get better every single week. You know, as I said, we put that Ohio State win kind of behind us, and now it's moving on to Purdue. And now it's putting in even more work than we did against Ohio State to be 1-0 this week. That's kind of the mantra and the mind-set that we take each week. Q. You're a positive guy, or you seem to be. What did you learn about yourself during that time when you were out, because it was quite a while we saw you on the headset but what was the lowest point of that time and what did you learn about yourself? JASON CABINDA: For me, luckily I haven't had to deal with a whole lot of injuries in my career, so for me it was tough sitting out, there's no doubt about it. You want to be out there and you want to be making plays and alongside your brothers and stuff. But at the same time, being able to kind of sit back, you kind of get put into coach mode and you get to see how offenses are attacking you and you get to help out the young guys, like I said, and try to be as available as you can, try to be around as you can. Being at practice, being around, being right there next to Manny and Coop and those guys as soon as they have a question in practice or whatever it may be, and try to help those guys out as much as you can is what I went through during that time and what I learned about myself, is going into coach mode. Q. Would you want to coach? JASON CABINDA: I've thought about it. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. But we'll see where football takes me. Q. I know you said Saturday that you had talk to Manny Bowen the night before about what was kind of in store. Curious, did you and Brandon Bell have any sort of conversation before the game or immediately after? That was the first time you two had played together since week one, so just kind of curious about any memorable dialogue. JASON CABINDA: Yeah, no doubt. Me and B had been talking all week, and especially talk before the game, just go out there and lead, mean. Go out there and lead and go make plays. Be an example. And he's won defensive Player of the Week, and he really went out there and embodied that. He was all over the field making a ton of plays. It was awesome. With Manny, me and him, actually we were sitting in the hotel room and we had college game day on and they did the preview for our game and said there's no way they should win this game and all that kind of stuff. Obviously you look at that, and it's like that's bulletin board material for us and that's kind of the mind-set I took. You don't worry about those kind of things, what people say or the media says. For us, you really hear it live, it's hard not to take it personally and we did and we went out there and executed and it was awesome. Q. Coach said he had like 350 text messages after the game. How many did you have and was there anyone who reached out to you who really meant a lot to you? JASON CABINDA: Yeah, my phone blew up after that game, Twitter, Snapchat and texts from home. I actually had a couple of my former high school teammates reached out to me, guys that were seniors when I was a sophomore in high school, and hearing from those guys, because they are really the guys who I kind of had got my football approach from, Blake Searfoss. He plays quarterback over at Lafayette. And him, hearing from him was just -- it was huge, because that's a guy I haven't talked to in a long time and a guy that was one of the captains at my football team when I was a sophomore and took me under their wing when I was a sophomore playing varsity those kind of things. Kind of reminded me who I used to look at as leaders; and Vinny Catrell (ph), as well, who was one of the seniors in our high school. Hearing from those guys kind of meant a lot to me. Those are guys that I looked up to when I was a young guy. Q. What did they say? JASON CABINDA: Blake, he said congratulations, you're really doing a good job representing Hunterdon Central, which is my high school, things along those lines, it kind of meant a lot to me. Q. Going back like ten steps here, but how did you actually get hurt, because we saw you play, and was it a practice or game? JASON CABINDA: Yeah, it happened during the game. Second play of the game. It kind of just happened. Didn't think it was as bad as it was. Kind of just went on the sideline and had them tape it up until I couldn't move it. But played the rest of the game and then X-rayed it. Q. So fast-forwarding like 20 steps, teammates are saying, obviously Brandon Bell talking, those kind of things, Mike said that he was shocked that Bell talked, DaeSean Hamilton talked. Can you describe Brandon Bell to us? I think maybe we see one side and you see another. JASON CABINDA: You know, B-Bell, he's a calm dude, laid back. More of a chill guy in the room. And seeing him get in front of us before the game, and he's not much of a big rah-rah-hype guy. But I think the talk they had about dogs fighting and that kind of stuff, really put guys in the right mind-set and the right mood for what they are about to step into, being a heavyweight fight, 12-round type of heavyweight fight, as simple as that. We knew it was going to be a four-quarter game and we knew it was going to be a fight and we came through. With the way he's playing, he could do anything he wants if he puts his mind to it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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