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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 22, 2019

John Reid

University Park, Pennsylvania

Q. I just wanted to ask about Dan Chisena. What kind of teammate is he, and what are your impressions of his game so far this year?
JOHN REID: I mean, Dan I feel like has always been just an awesome person to be around. He came in with me freshman year. You know, we came in together. We worked hard. He ended up leaving for track and he came back for football and we were really excited to have him back.

He's a great person and always great to be around no matter what, even through the sore days of camp, he has a positive attitude.

As far as defending him as a receiver, he's usually probably the fastest receiver I guard the whole entire week. Usually it's not very close, either. He poses a really good challenge I would say.

Q. This will be the third straight year facing Brian Lewerke. How much does that familiarity benefit you being able to watch the last two years of tape and not just this season, as well?
JOHN REID: I definitely think it's a benefit. Just seeing how they attack us and everything on defense to kind of prepare for that. In some other ways we feel like they will attack us this year.

He know he has a good ability to be able to extend plays and I think what's even more important about how he does it is he extends plays but then doesn't make a lot of bad decisions when he does it. That's really a credit to how good of a quarterback he is.

Q. Is there anything you can take away or learn from the past two seasons against Michigan State and what makes them -- what's made them a tough match-up in the recent past?
JOHN REID: They are just always really well-coached, disciplined team, no matter what their record is. They are always a great team. That's kind of the approach we have always taken.

You know, you expect them to come out and play great defense and really scheme you up on offense.

You know they have good players to do that, especially with the quarterback being able to extend things for so long, that poses a really hard challenge on any defense. Kind of just look at the past couple season when is he's done that and what he's done to improve from it.

Q. Touching on extending plays, for a secondary, what is the frustration level when you have a great defensive line but he still breaks contain and you have to cover a guy or five, six, seven seconds. How you do you mentally stay in the game when you're covering these four- and five-star athletes for an extended period of time?
JOHN REID: It's definitely frustrating, but it happens. You kind of work the drills and everything like that. In practice, the biggest thing is just staying connected to receivers. You don't want to let a receiver run free after you've already covered him, like you said, for five seconds. That's what makes it even more frustrating. You can be on a receiver that whole entire route, and that last split second he'll snap off like a comeback or something like that, and it will usually be for a first down because they are breaking those routes deep.

It's definitely frustrating, but as a cornerback, you're kind of prepared for that mentally and we've been through that a lot before. We usually expect our D-Line to be able to get there. It doesn't happen too often we feel like.

Q. How have you seen Wilson develop especially the last few weeks as he's been seeing much more playing time?
JOHN REID: He's just a great competitor. He's shown awesome ball skills, even without getting interceptions sometimes in practice, able to force a lot of fumbles. He had a play last week in two-minute versus the offense where they were driving. They were pretty much about to break into the red zone and he punches the ball out at the last second and picks it up. He has great ball awareness and he's confident in his ability when he goes out there.

Q. It's been three years today since the Ohio State block and return. Has enough time passed for you to kind of reflect on what that kind of kicked off over the next few years, or is it still -- I don't know how much you think about something like that.
JOHN REID: I'm going to be honest, I don't really think about it too much. I'm more worried about the season at hand. I'm sure at some point I'll end up reflecting on it, maybe in the off-season or something.

I don't really think about anything from the previous years. The only time those things ever come up, plays like that, is either during the season or if you're in the off-season and y'all are just talking about past games and stuff like that.

Q. Does it make you feel old? You've been here for approximately ten years.
JOHN REID: (Laughing). I was glad I was able to be a part of it.

Q. How does visualization play a role in what you do as a corner? Sean Clifford was telling us he spends a lot of time doing that.
JOHN REID: I do it a ton. I think it's really important. You speak with any other athletes, guys who are at the top of their game, they do a lot of visualization to be able to improve. They want to see the plays they want to make, even those instances, when they have done them before, you feel more confident doing them.

Almost like watching a boxer. They shadow box and stuff like that, they do a lot of it. Just imagine your opponent -- at least for me what I see on film, I try to visualize it, how a receiver is going to try to attack me, things like that. It makes you much more confident going into the game.

Q. How has the sports psychologist helped?
JOHN REID: I think just for the team as a whole, I think that he gives just a different perspective on everything. Like a different lens that you're able to see everything through. And I think he's provided a lot of guys with different techniques to handle stuff like the excitement on game day, kind of controlling that; how to respond to adversity and things like that. Kind of just building on the message that I would say that Coach Franklin gives us a lot throughout the week.

Q. I wanted to ask you about a teammate, Keaton Ellis. Just curious since camp, what's changed about him and also, what are the similarities or differences between him and where you were as a true freshman?
JOHN REID: I mean, I think just in all the freshmen, I see the confidence they go out there and play with. We pretty much told them from day one, that Coach Smith always plays a freshman at corner. It's up to you guys to make sure you're ready and prepared for it and we'll help you along the way, you just have to keep asking questions. All those guys have played. They ask a ton of questions and they perform. I think they just have great confidence in themselves.

I think Keaton, he's improving each week more and more his technique but he has just natural talent to find the ball just like how Marquis does. I think that's going to keep benefitting him as he goes along.

Q. I'm going to bring up Ohio State 2016. But 18-14 for Franklin before that game and 34-7 since that game and have been ranked every week since that game. You've seen before and you've seen after. Is there a sense of before and after with the way that game played out and the trajectory of the program since that match-up three years ago?
JOHN REID: I don't know, it's kind of hard to really answer that because like we just follow the same process every week.

It's just some days, people will see the results more but we're kind of constantly seeing that improvement each and every day, and I feel like that's always been the way, even since when I got here in 2015. I've always seen steady progress to get better and better.

That's why we keep that 1-0 process because if you're only trying to get better and improve depending on certain games, you'll have a really inconsistent program. But I think the mentality that we have, being 1-0 each week, has kind of allowed us to keep improving and seeing the gains that everybody is seeing from us.

Q. Considering the amount of freshmen and redshirt freshman, coming off of the White Out win, all the stuff that goes with that, how do you as a leader come in on Sunday and kind of ensure that everyone is moving forward and not reminiscing on Saturday night way too much?
JOHN REID: I mean, I don't think you're going to reminisce too much when you expect it. Like we expect to win. We go into over game, we expect to win. The visualization part we imagine ourselves doing our job and everything we can do to win the game.

When you feel like you've been there before and you constantly have the expectation of yourself, it's not really so much of a huge parade, I'm excited; it's because I expect to do it. It's kind of that mentality over and over again, every week. That's just kind of how we feel.

Q. If I can ask one more on a different subject. Each week we get an assistant coach on the phone on Thursday and this week it's Terry Smith. How is he, as the head coach of your position, how has he helped you individually and how has he helped this program in total?
JOHN REID: Coach Smith gives a great perspective because he's been in our shoes before. He's made a ton of plays here; a guy who broke records here. He knows what we are going through.

But then at the same like he knows how to push each of us individually and mentally and forces us to want to be a guy that makes that big play. You already want to do it and he's giving you the techniques and the different perspective on things like that or how you could be doing it or the things you should be doing in practice more.

I think it just gives a really good perspective because he's been a great coach for many years now, and then he played at the top level here. So I mean, he's a really valuable resource for us.

Q. The last two games against Michigan State has been on the field when they scored in the final seconds. Is that something this week that's used as bulletin board material to motivate you guys to what's happened the last two years?
JOHN REID: It's something we've seen. We rewatch all the games and know we're the ones on the field, and we just know that we need to finish it out. That's kind of our mentality, being humble and hungry, and then finishing out the game. That's kind of the plan every week. That's kind of how we want it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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