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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEAugust 5, 2017Charles HuffUniversity Park, Pennsylvania THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by special teams coordinator and running backs coach Charles Huff. Actually, Charles is going to give a brief opening statement, and then we'll open it up to questions. CHARLES HUFF: Welcome everybody here. Glad you're here. Excited to be here. I'll be quick and get out of your way so Joe Mo can come down and tell us how many points we're going to score. But appreciate you guys are here and appreciate all you do for us. Q. Charles, when do you hope to settle on the return game? And who are among the leading candidates right now? CHARLES HUFF: I would say we would hope to settle probably closer to the game because that means we've got really good competition. Obviously, in that phase, we don't do it every day. So when we get to that phase, there will be four or five days devoted to kickoff return, which I guess is what you're talking about, or punt return. Right now we have guys who are doing really well. DeAndre Thompkins, who's done it before. Mark Allen, who's done it before. Josh McPhearson, who's done it before. Speaking punt return, just to kind of give you an idea, we have young guys who have done it in high school and have some talent, Mac Hippenhammer, KJ Hamler did it in high school as well, and Brandon Polk. So we have a good pool, and that's kind of what we want. We want to allow those guys to have an opportunity to show us what they have. But also there's a fine line because we can't run 11 guys down there or 8 guys and see who's going to make a guy miss or who's going to make great decisions. It's obviously going to come down to who's the most consistent over the course of time, and then obviously getting in the game and being able to do it in front of 107,000. Q. (No microphone)? CHARLES HUFF: Just the punt returners. And the kickoff return, obviously, Miles Sanders as a freshman last year did a very good job for us. I expect him to be much improved. You've got to remember that Miles Sanders was a great athlete, but Miles Sanders never returned kicks in high school. So every time he was back there, it was a new experience. I think he gained a lot from that experience. He feels more confident. He understands a little bit more. Obviously, he's gotten bigger, stronger, faster, and that's going to help. Nick Scott, who we've seen before back there, is a guy who's done it as well in games. Brandon Polk is another guy. KJ Hamler would be in that mix as well, based on his progression on offense. So we feel really good about the guys we have. That's probably one area going into summer camp that we feel like we can make a big improvement in, not because we're going to draw up some great play or not because we've got this secret weapon, but just the guys are a year older. They understand the scheme a little bit more. So that will help us moving forward. Q. Coach was just talking about Saquon as an individual. CHARLES HUFF: Who's that? Q. Coach Franklin, that guy. So when we were in practice the other day, you were running a drill, and Journey Brown was kind of struggling a little bit, and Saquon started huffing and barking at them. Can you give us some insight into Saquon as a leader and the leader of that position group? CHARLES HUFF: Well, we have a standard in the running back room. We have a standard in this program, and we have a standard in the running back room, and Saquon sets the standard. Obviously, being the position coach, I kind of hold those guys to certain standards, if they want to be elite players, what they have to do on a consistent basis. You know, we map that out early at the beginning of the summer. We laid out what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? Who do you want to be as a group? And then Saquon challenges the group and himself to holding that standard. Obviously, with Journey being a younger guy and he's still learning -- he's still learning where to go, how to go, and how to practice. It's all new to him. But like Saquon tells all of us, we're not going to baby you along. You're going to learn the way we did, the hard way. We learn faster like that, with a little bit of pressure on us. And Saquon does a good job of it. He does a good job with the team as well, with holding the team and his teammates to a standard. Like I tell him all the time, if you're going to hold the team to a standard, you've got to hold yourself to a standard, and I think we all know he holds himself to a very high standard in everything he does -- on the field, off the field. He's killing it in the classroom right now. I know you guys don't get to see that. He was excited, one of his summer classes he thinks he's going to get an A in. But that's the type of kid he is. Everything he does, he wants to be really, really good at it, and if he doesn't feel he's the best, he's going to work and work and work, and he holds people around him to that same standard. Q. So in Blake Gillikin, you had a true freshman who led all freshmen punters with 42.8 yards per kick. He was a weapon for you guys last year. Now that you kind of know what you have -- not to say that you didn't know what you had coming into camp last year, but what's the next step for him? Because it was pretty clear that his leg was able to change field position and alter the outcome of certain games. So what's his, I guess, next step in year two? CHARLES HUFF: The biggest thing for Blake -- and it's a word that we say a lot -- is consistency. He had unbelievable numbers, and we'll go back and look, and he'll probably tell you that there were a handful or two handfuls of punts that he would love to have back, and that's going to be the biggest thing for him, to be consistent and kind of take the next step. Now I'm not just getting out here and punting the ball, but I am going to place the ball and make it very difficult for returners and teams to be successful. I am going to be able to change locations, steps, in order to be efficient but also being consistent. That will be the thing. Obviously, a year older. He knows kind of the routine now. He knows his body better. He's gotten bigger, faster, stronger. He knows how long it takes him to warm up. He knows how long it takes him to cool down. He knows kind of the routine of a game. I think he'll be a lot more comfortable. He doesn't lack confidence. I don't know if you've ever met him. He's a very confident young man. But I think the thing for him is going to be consistency and being able -- a lot of people can do it two or three times, but being able to repeat those bomb of a kicks when we need them and then pinning teams in when we need them and then being able to keep returners at bay. Q. (No microphone)? CHARLES HUFF: That's probably about right. That's probably about right, yeah. Not even warmed up, he's probably just kind of like pooching them down there. Q. (No microphone)? CHARLES HUFF: I apologize for him. (Laughter). Q. How has Journey Brown looked in the limited time you've seen him? CHARLES HUFF: He's looked good. Now, at the same token, he's in a group with a guy who's really, really good. So obviously, there's a difference. But he's looked really good. The one thing I'm really surprised about is Journey's ability to retain the information. Obviously, as a freshman, there's a lot. That's a testament to the other guys in the group, and I challenged those guys to study with him at night. He started early. We've got a few installs in, and he's got a pretty good grasp. He's still a freshman. But physically, he has it. It's going to be the other things like with all the other freshmen. The good part with him is he's in the room with a lot of good leaders who played early, and they kind of know how to take that next step from high school to college and make an immediate impact. Q. Coach, can you describe the conversation you guys had with Joey Julius when he decided to leave the program? And the second part is who's in line to be taking over the kickoff duties? CHARLES HUFF: I would love to talk about any of our guys. Right now Tyler Davis is an unbelievable kicker, field goal guy. Tyler Davis also was kicking off all year in the event that something happened, just like any backup quarterback or anything. Tyler Davis has been preparing all summer. I really feel Tyler Davis is probably taking the biggest step maturity-wise of a lot of men on the team now. Tyler Davis is almost like 60 when you look at him compared to everybody else. He's a lot older. But he is such a mature kid. If you watch the way he works, if you watch the way he warms up, it's almost like meticulous. It's like Phil Mickelson. He goes out and does the same routine every single day. It's almost like Groundhog Day. But because of that, he's so consistent, and he's so reliable, and he's done that this summer with kickoffs and field goals. And then there's a fine line because you can't go out every day and just kick 100 balls. You're body starts to fall apart. But he's done an unbelievable job of taking care of his body, kicking, getting stronger, getting faster. He's even taken a role now of helping the younger guys. He's become a little bit more vocal, which shows his maturity and growth. And that's something we challenged him with this summer, to start taking a little bit more of a leadership role, and he has, which has helped Alex Barbir. It's helped Blake. We feel good about where we are there. Q. Coach, I know the offensive linemen is not your group -- CHARLES HUFF: Coach Limegrove is the best line coach in the country, and when he gets here, I'll tell him to come see you. No, go ahead. Q. Obviously, it has a direct impact on your running backs. The excitement they may feel when they see the depth that that group is growing and what they see on film, just to have that little extra inch or two of space for, whether it be Saquon or anyone else. Just talk about the line and their development. CHARLES HUFF: Well, you said it. The depth we have at running back, we have that depth at O-line now. That's one of the things that's really helped our program. Not only do we have very, very good starters, we have a lot of guys behind them that can push for time and spell some guys or battle some guys if some guys have to come out or whatever. Coach Limegrover has done an unbelievable job of building a culture in that room of it's not the starting five, it's all of us. Those guys know I may have to go in at right guard. I may have to go in at left guard, and it helps. They challenge the running backs, and the running backs challenge them. I tell the running backs all the time, when they do their job and you miss a cut, they're probably not real excited about it. So you've got to hold your part too. But they've grown so much. Obviously, playing young guys has helped. But last year they were the unsung heroes of what we did. Building on that, they have a lot more confidence. Some of those guys are back. They're challenging the younger guys. The younger guys that redshirted last year are taking bigger roles. We've probably seen a lot of growth from those redshirt guys that are really impressive. So it's great to be around a good group of O-linemen. It's one thing when you've got three or four, and you're like great. But it's another thing to be around a really great group. Q. The last couple of years, you seemed to have a coverage ace like Von Walker or Nick Scott. Is there somebody who is an understudy to Nick this year or who you think could have a really big year on special teams in the coverage aspect of the game? CHARLES HUFF: There's a lot. The one that probably jumps to mind right now is the guy who led our team last year on special teams tackles, probably Ayron Monroe. Ayron Monroe played a huge role last year, and his role's going to grow. If you were saying, okay, who's the Von Walker of the group right now, it's probably Ayron. There's probably another -- the one thing that's a little bit different is there's probably six or seven of those guys that have played significant roles, and now putting them on the field together, although they all may not rack up ten tackles, if ten people get one tackle, that's a pretty good day. But Ayron Monroe has done an unbelievable job. Juwan Johnson, who's going to have a bigger role on offense, has done a really good job for us. Christian Campbell, Troy Apke's done an unbelievable job. We've had to pull Grant Haley back because he wants to be on every coverage unit. And we've got some younger guys. But he's another guy that's done an unbelievable job. The one thing we have right now is we have a lot of older guys who are delivering the message to the younger guys but are not passing the torch. Does that make sense? They're not saying, hey, Coach, take me off and play this younger guy. They're saying, hey, Coach, I'm going to help you get the younger guy ready, but I still want to be on this unit. When you get to that level, you have a true culture of success, a culture of believing in special teams. Q. Coach, Andre Robinson came into the program as a pretty highly regarded recruit. Can you talk a little bit about how he's handled his role as a backup to Saquon after kind of being the guy all his high school career? CHARLES HUFF: In our room, there are no backups. When you're in the game, you're the starting running back. Whoever runs out there first is luck of the draw, and that's the kind of mentality we've got to have because, if you take a backup mentality -- and I know that's not what you're saying he is. But you take a backup mentality, you're not going to prepare to be the starter, and then when you're the starter, you won't be ready for your opportunity. Andre Robinson is a great example of that who goes out every day and prepares for his opportunity. Is it 10 carries, 20 carries, or 1 carry? Who knows? Who knows when it may be all 20? Or who knows when it may not be any? But he's done a really good job of preparing every single day and not letting the circumstances dictate his behavior. That's a tough thing as a human. You're in there with Saquon and Saquon's playing, come out to practice the next day, it's hard to come out and give everything you got and prepare for an opportunity that you may or may not get. But he, along with the rest of the room, have done that. And I think one of the things that helps that is that Saquon is such a good person, they don't resent his success. They kind of embrace his success as it's our success, and that's kind of what we have in the room, which is really good. Q. Charles, you mentioned Alex a couple minutes ago. In what ways has he improved from last year to this year? What can he still learn from Tyler and some of those other guys? CHARLES HUFF: I think the biggest thing for Alex, being here a year, he's a lot more mature. Everybody -- obviously, as you're a young kid, everybody that's recruited is highly recruited. You kind of get here and kind of get a gauge on where you are. The other thing I would say is strength. He's gotten stronger. He can learn or has learned from Tyler to me, which is the most important, how to get in a routine. When you're in high school, you kick. You don't really have a routine of how you kick. But from Tyler, how to prepare on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Okay, I'm getting close to the game. What do I need to do? It's off-season. It's a bye week. Okay, it's Thursday. It's getting later in the year temperature-wise. I think those are the things that Tyler has been able to help Alex with. For the first time, it was Tyler going through it for the first time. But now him being able to kind of relay that information has really been good. Q. (No microphone)? CHARLES HUFF: Yeah, if Joe Mo puts it in the end zone and he can hit the extra point, we're all good. Everybody is on YouTube hitting 72-yarders. I'm not going to say he goes out for a 72-yarder, but we ask all of our guys to be efficient, and obviously we chart every day so that on game day we know. I don't answer your question because it could change by week. If in practice that week he was really accurate from a certain range, that's what we go into the game with. If it changes by week -- I would make an example. Tyler Davis' range changed by week last year. In the beginning of the season, and then it kind of got further out. And with the more kicks he made in practice with the data we have, it was able to change, and we try to use that so we're not subjected to, oh, yeah, he can hit this. What does the data say? Thank you, guys. Look forward to seeing you guys on September 2nd. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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