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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 11, 2018

Jan Johnson

University Park, Pennsylvania

Q. What does it mean to you to be in this position having family members be on the team at Penn State in the past and how does it feel to earn this spot, be a starting linebacker?
JAN JOHNSON: Yeah, ever since I was little, I guess I was a Penn State fan, growing up, since my mom and dad obviously went here. They both played sports here. My aunt and uncle also played sports here. I had another aunt that went here.

Growing up, a big Penn State fan, all I ever wanted to do was come here and play football. I remember when I was in middle school or something, I remember coming to a game here against Michigan and was sitting in like the top end of the bleachers and I could feel the stadium shaking. I was like, wow, I don't know how you could top this.

It means a lot because it was my childhood dream to come here and play here. It's awesome to be fulfilling that right now.

Q. What's the most impressive thing you've seen Micah Parsons do so far and what do you see being his ceiling?
JAN JOHNSON: Well, I don't know if I can narrow it down to one thing. I think he plays incredibly fast. He's super strong. He's an incredible blitzer. His ceiling, I couldn't -- I don't know what his ceiling is.

I mean, he's only 18 years old maybe. His body is still growing. He's still growing mentally. He's just going to get, you know, more physical. He's going to get -- he's going to be faster and he's going to know the defense better, and I don't know what his ceiling would be.

Q. What are some of the benefits and challenges; you guys have used a lot of linebackers the first couple weeks. Does that make it more difficult when you're coming out there and every drive, seemingly there's some rotations or is that a benefit?
JAN JOHNSON: I think it's a benefit because it helps the linebacker core as a group. It helps us all know how to work with each other and know what our strengths and weaknesses are together.

You know when you go out there with Koa and Cam, everybody knows -- you know how her going to play and you know out there with Micah, you know it's different. In practice, we get those reps, and it helps, but in the game, it's a game-time thing.

I don't think it really hurts us. It helps us grow depth at the position and it's helping everyone get used to playing with each other, so I think it only can be beneficial.

Q. Do you expect there will be this much of a rotation a few weeks from now?
JAN JOHNSON: I'm not sure how it's going to happen.

Q. What have you seen from Jarvis Miller and what does he bring as a guy that's a converted safety to linebacker?
JAN JOHNSON: I think when Jarvis first came to linebacker, as most DBs, they are not sure how to play into the box. It's so much different. There's not a lot of space.

I think Jarvis has shown he's become a lot more physical since he first became a Sam. His blitzing has been a lot better and he's able to come in and hit somebody, instead of just laying his hands on people.

Q. What's the emotional roller coaster that you go through in that Michigan game? Everybody's hurt and then you're hurt, and then like one more injury away from me playing. How was that day for you?
JAN JOHNSON: I think leading up to it would be better. I remember, just going into practice, I was on the scout team field and then they called me over saying, hey -- this was a week or two before, you're going to have to start, like really taking it really seriously.

I was kind of prepared that if I do go in, I don't want to mess up. Like I don't want to be the one that everyone is looking like, all right, this is the reason why.

So I think going into that game, I was prepared. I was taking all the reps with the two. B Smith was taking the first team reps going into that and then he got that targeting penalty and then it was just like, you're in, this is real. It's happening.

So I don't think that it -- I was kind of nervous because I practiced it. I knew what I had to do when I got out there. So it wasn't like I was, you know, crap, I'm going to mess up or something. It was all right.

Q. Talk about the opponent this week, Kent State and what they pose as a threat.
JAN JOHNSON: Yeah, their tempo is extremely quick. They like to spread you out. They will spread you out, run the ball and if you're not out there to cover the receivers, they will throw the ball.

I think that we have to make sure that everyone is communicating, knows the call and is hurrying back to get set because they will snap it right away. But we also have be to able to, you know, play with some disguise so they don't exactly know what we're in and just be composed.

You know, quickly, you start getting tired, you start not thinking about what you're supposed to do on every play and that's how they burn you real easily.

Q. When was the first moment where you felt that you could start here; that you had kind of earned your spot? Was it as soon as you had gotten here? Did it take some time? How did that play out?
JAN JOHNSON: It took some time. You know, when I first got here, I had not played a lot of linebacker in high school. I mainly played safety. I played a little bit of linebacker my freshman year but that was years ago.

Then of course I went and wrestled for a little bit, so I was away from football for a little bit. I came back in that spring and I ended up playing a lot during the spring with people hurt and people leaving, all the freshmen had not come in yet for the next year.

I would say once my redshirt freshman year started going, I started doing all right and I wasn't making those same mistakes and stuff. It was just a growing process. I think my sophomore year, I got real comfortable saying, I can play here. I didn't come here to just be a scout team player. That wasn't the goal. That's not why I'm here. It's here to play and participate and help be a factor for the defense.

Q. If I could just ask another. You said you grew up a Penn State fan. Who was your favorite Penn State player growing up?
JAN JOHNSON: Well, I mean -- well, it's kind of weird because Samari (ph) was just here but I liked watching him play linebacker when he was here when everything was going on. I liked how he was a strong player and he was physical and determined and he knew what he was doing when he was out there.

Q. How are Cael Sanderson and James Franklin alike and maybe different?
JAN JOHNSON: They both don't have hair, so that's kind of a similarity (Laughter).

They both are strong leaders. You know what you're getting from both of them. You know what the expectations are, what they want you to do and how they want you to do it.

The difference is, you know, they are two completely different sports. Wrestling is both team and individualistic, but football is more of a team sport.

Coach Cael, I would say, you know, he's more silent. It's kind of like, you know what he's done in the past, and you know that he knows what he's talking about to get there, and you kind of know what the expectation is when you're working with him.

Coach Franklin is more: He's going to tell you what to do. You know, you're going to do it. He's going to be more enthusiastic and he's going to be there in your ear yelling and cheering you on the whole way while you're doing it.

Q. Luketa and Brooks, how have you seen them develop? How have you seen them push you?
JAN JOHNSON: Well, they are both great players. I think Ellis has done a great job. He's worked on -- he's more of -- like when I go out there, I'm more like, I'm going to hit you, try to hit you, and he's more creative finding his way to slip blocks or get himself to the wall.

In watching spring ball he was always around the ball and is that way now. He's got a nose to know where to go and he's going to find a different route to get there.

I think Jesse is still growing. It was great to see him get the reps and feel him get comfortable playing the Mike linebacker and commanding the defense, and being out there, his first real college game. I think Jesse, you know, to be able to come in as a true freshman, he came in in the spring -- in the winter, I guess.

But to be able to know and understand the defense shows how smart he is as a player and as a person.

Q. I know when Carl Nassib was here, he took a lot of pride in being a walk on and would go over to the other walk-ons and use it as a rallying point. Do you do that with other guys who are maybe in similar situations that you were?
JAN JOHNSON: I mean, as in?

Q. Telling them to keep working their way up; that maybe they, too, could play themselves into a starting role, kind of thing.
JAN JOHNSON: I think generally for most of the walk-ons, they want to play. They have had opportunities to go to a smaller school and stuff, or maybe they didn't get recruited as they thought they should have, so they come here to prove themselves.

I think as a mentality, as a walk-on, you're trying to prove yourself all the time. So I think that you don't need -- well, you shouldn't have anybody else even that needs to come and tell you, you know, keep working hard, you can do this. It's kind of like yourself, you already know this is what you're here to do. You're here to work hard and prove that you can play at this level.

Q. Am I correct that you're still a walk-on?
JAN JOHNSON: Yeah.

Q. From your vantage point, having Givens back in the lineup, week two, what does that do to free you up at the heart of the defense, and the whole lineback group, the back seven in general?
JAN JOHNSON: Finding someone to try to block Kevin is pretty difficult. He's huge, but he's also fast and quick and he can easily shoot a gap and get into the backfield.

So that helps, having the offensive linemen have to focus on actually blocking him before they can just, you know, scrape up to a linebacker or something, which gives us more time to be free and read the play and see what's happening.

Also, even I guess the safeties, they come down and play in the box, too, for us and that helps them there. And also, puts the -- the offense has to focus more on trying to block him, with his quickness and his speed and less trying to block us, I guess.

Q. The group of linebackers haven't really played together on the field and still figuring out how to share these reps. What's the level of accountability among your group versus where it was, say, the final week of August? Now that you've been through a couple games, made mistakes together, bounced back, where is that right now?
JAN JOHNSON: I think we're in a room where we want to limit the mental mistakes that we have, fitting in the right gaps and stuff.

I think everyone is going to have a physical mistake every once in a while but I think as a group when we go in on Sunday and Monday and watch the film from the game before, that we understand what we did wrong and everyone is there correcting, you know, what happened and then people are offering advice on what they would do different and how this would change.

So I think that we're just trying to grow together as a unit.

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