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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 3, 2019

Daniel George

University Park, Pennsylvania

Q. How are you?
DANIEL GEORGE: Good. How are you?

Q. Good. First game under Coach Parker's direction. I know you had a long off-season with him. How do you evaluate the overall receiver room through one week, and what do you think you stand to gain the most moving forward?
DANIEL GEORGE: I feel like Coach Parker has helped the receiver room grow a lot in the time that he's been here, definitely. The main thing I noticed that he's helped us with is our energy and our mindset.

Just basically projecting what he has onto us, and it's just really changed the way we play and how we think about how we play.

Q. Going off that, Daniel, how are you a different receiver this year than at this time last year?
DANIEL GEORGE: I'm actually ten pounds lighter I believe, so I move a lot better -- I feel I can I move a lot better than I have in the past. Definitely my hand placement and how I catch the ball has gotten a lot better than before.

Q. Something Coach Galt wanted you to do? How did you transform your body to get to that number?
DANIEL GEORGE: That's something that Coach Galt and I talked about post-season in our meeting. Definitely implementing everything he wanted me to do has helped me lose the weight, the right amount of weight. It's helped a lot in my game.

Q. I do have a follow-up. You mention the Coach Parker's mindset. Can you describe that mindset?
DANIEL GEORGE: Yeah, Coach Parker has a really strong mindset, so he's like the next-play mentality. You make a good play, that's great, but you have to get back into it again. You make a bad play, that is not as good, but you also have to get back and get the next one. Do better next time.

Q. That 95-yard touchdown you had last year, you caught it at the 35-ish or so with nobody around you. What do you think about in the next 60 yards of just running?
DANIEL GEORGE: I was just literally thinking, Run. Don't get caught. But definitely I was thinking about scoring and just keeping my feet, making sure that I get there without getting caught.

Q. You guys ever use the scoreboards to kind of reference anybody behind you?
DANIEL GEORGE: Not really. I feel like I don't. I just really look at what's straight ahead in front of me.

Q. Justin Shorter told us in the off-season he felt like a big part of his game that was going to be improved was just straight up confidence and that was going to carry him forward. Coach Parker said the same thing. How have seen Justin maybe transition from who he was last June to where he is now as redshirt freshman and a starter?
DANIEL GEORGE: Yeah, I feel like Justin really grew into his own in the springtime. He's grown to be more of a big receiver and plays bigger than before. When he first got here he was more of a speedy guy. Now he's using his speed and his size, which helped his game a lot and definitely boosted his confidence, yeah.

Q. Going off that, how would you say you and Justin are different as receivers?
DANIEL GEORGE: I would say I play more quicker than he is. He's more physical with his hands and stuff like that. I'm more elusive I would say.

Q. What does a guy like K.J. bring to the room, not just from a playing perspective, but he's a big personality, too. What does that do to te rest of you?
DANIEL GEORGE: That just really helps all of us. One person is down, his energy picks them up and keeps us all on our toes. Definitely him being the older guy in the room the wisdom that he has and the playing time, he just let's us know how it is and how it'll being when we get our time to shine.

Q. Does he talk as much during games?
DANIEL GEORGE: Definitely. He's a very vocal person at all times.

Q. So between plays? There were a couple NCAAs you guys were running together at some point last week.
DANIEL GEORGE: Yeah.

Q. So in between he's still talking?
DANIEL GEORGE: Yeah. Between each play he's Come one, DG, let's go, D.G. We got to get it. Every play he's in our ear.

Q. One last one from me. You guys looked like you were really pushing the tempo early on last week. How do you feel like that went, and is that something maybe we'll see more and more of every week?
DANIEL GEORGE: Yeah, I definitely feel like as time goes on and the games progress our tempo will get even better. That's something we really work on in practice, keeping the tempo and speed up. If one person is tired, I feel like the depth at receiver is really good. If somebody is tired, the next person can come in and there won't be any drop in our play.

Q. You came in with Will. Getting a chance to see him in game action, what stands out about Will? Coach Franklin just said he needs to do a better job of getting down and not taking hits. In terms of who he is on the practice field and how have you seen him respond to coming up short in that QB competition?
DANIEL GEORGE: Will is a really mature person to me, so I feel like he handled that really well. The main thing about him is his arm, his arm and his size. He can really throw a really strong, tight zip. I feel like that's the main thing he has going for him right now. And his size as well.

Q. So what can you tell us about Buffalo this week and what challenges to see them being able to pose from your perspective?
DANIEL GEORGE: I know Buffalo is a really good team. They have pretty good DBs and they won the MAC last year with them. I feel like the main thing will be us staying focus and playing our game, living up to what we want to do on the field. That will be the main thing to help us get the W this week, yeah.

Q. Coach Franklin mentioned he told Will, You have to get down; you can't be taking those sorts of hits. What's it like when you see a quarterback doing that? I have to imagine you probably want him to get down, too.
DANIEL GEORGE: Yeah.

Q. What's going through your head about his level of toughness?
DANIEL GEORGE: I definitely agree that he has to get down and protect his body. It just showed me how strong minded he is, how strong of a player he is. And really I want to get going. If I quarterback can do it, I know I can do it.

Q. When you met K.J. for the first time, what was that like? Can you tell us about it? Do you recall?
DANIEL GEORGE: Yeah, just like how he always is. Yo, what's up, man. I'm K.J. Hamler. How you doing? Just a really energetic person. I'm like, Oh, what's up? I'm Daniel. Yeah, his energy is always at the top.

Q. With your room we got a chance to see Weston Carr out there. I think he is 23, 22. Most of you are 18, 19, 20 in that room it seems. Does he bring any kind of extra accountability because this is his final year, because of the chance he took on coming to Penn State? What stands out about Weston?
DANIEL GEORGE: Weston, he really focuses on like the little details that we can't -- I wouldn't say we can't, but we don't notice as much because of the experience he has. So things like coverage-wise or how a DB plays off or plays man, he sees those type of things, let's us know, and it kind of helps all of our games together.

Q. In terms of experience, with Jahan, another guy you came in with, last seen him rise up and become a starter; this year he's carrying that forward. What does he do, in your opinion, to really separate himself? Obviously it was an impressive receiver room. You all wanted to be in that position. What do you think he did to give himself a head start in game action?
DANIEL GEORGE: I definitely think it's the way he carried himself in practice, just really focusing on his skills that he knows he has really good. Like his speed and his hands, I feeling like he used those really to separate himself from the other receivers last year, which really helped him skyrocket.

Q. Your 2018 class was all over the field on Saturday. I'm curious, on Sunday when you come in after a 72-point win and you kind of got to be the guys who say let's get back to work, how was that transition? In years past it's been Nick Scott or Trace McSorley or Marcus Allen who kind of beat that drum about getting back to work on Sunday. How do you think the team responded after such an impressive performance?
DANIEL GEORGE: I feel like it was more than just the class of 2018. I know we're definitely coming into our roles on this team more so this year. I feel like just the team as a whole took the team really well, and we realize we have to focus. It's next-game mentality. We have to focus on Buffalo now, even though it was a great win.

Q. From the start of the camp until now, what's one thing you've learned about this offense that you didn't know before camp started?
DANIEL GEORGE: Team-wise I feel like it's definitely our culture. I notice how good our culture is now compared to last year.

You said receiver room-wise, correct?

Q. Just team-wise. Maybe what's one thing you learned that you didn't know about this team before?
DANIEL GEORGE: Just definitely I would say our culture. It wasn't really new. It's not something I learned, but it's something I noticed has gotten better over time.

Q. Very scientific poll. Who's the biggest trash talker on the team?
DANIEL GEORGE: Biggest trash talker, Micah Parsons.

Q. Do we need an explanation on that?
DANIEL GEORGE: No. I feel like just based off his game. He knows how good he is and what he can do, so he's just really confident about it. I wouldn't say it's arrogant. Just confidence more so. Just brings energy to everyone.

Once he says something obviously someone has something to say back.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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