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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 5, 2020

James Franklin

University Park, Pennsylvania

JAMES FRANKLIN: You know, I obviously don't have a huge opening statement for you guys. Like always, I want to thank you guys, and I hope you guys know that we mean that. The coverage that you guys give us is fair. There's obviously a big appetite in this region for Penn State football, so you guys do a great job of serving that community, so we really appreciate that.

Obviously we've had some staff changes, which has probably been the biggest story since the last time we've spoke, and that's probably the hard part is I view my job as the head coach is to serve our players and serve the staff and helping everybody achieve their dreams, whether that is to graduate, whether that is to get a job on Wall Street, whether that is to go to the NFL, a combination of those things, whether that's guys being able to have the opportunity to grow professionally, and if you kind of look at it, it's pretty cool when you look at it, obviously it's challenging, and I'm not saying I love it, but also when it's cool when you look at -- we've had two assistants leave to become head coaches. We've had two assistants leave to be offensive coordinators, one assistant now at the NFL in Sean.

As you guys know, Sean was kind of one of the few guys left that's been with me from the beginning, so for me and Brent, you're talking about kind of our road dog for 10 years. We've been together for a long time. Sean was great, very up front about the whole situation, and obviously being from the region and his wife being from New York, it just made sense.

And then one of our -- even one of our administrators leaving football operations and going on to be associate AD, on that path.

Obviously it does create challenges, but I do think it's a really good example of a healthy program that people have seen the success that we've had and kind of want to steal bits and pieces of it.

It's a win-win for everybody. The thing we have to do a great job, obviously, is having a great list of people that we are going to be able to hire so that every change -- what I try to explain to the players, whether it's this or anything else in life, every change that happens is an opportunity. It's an opportunity hopefully for us to be able to hire someone with a similar skill set to keep things the same, and in some areas maybe even be able to upgrade, which is what we're always trying to do.

So that's probably the biggest news since I think the last time we talked, probably the biggest changes.

Today was a pretty mellow day when it comes to signings because we signed our entire class in the first signing period. Today we celebrated a lot of the PROs, what we call them, the PROs, the preferred run-on candidates, and it was great for those guys. It's an exciting time for those guys. We've got a number of guys that turned down scholarships to come to Penn State in this role, so that was cool, and then we were able to do a call-in with some of the top underclassmen in the country, as well. So that was good.

And then probably the last thing I'd say to you and then I'll open it up to questions is obviously we're spending a lot of time right now with the offense and talking about what they did at Minnesota, talking about what we have done, and then not only merging but also saying, okay, this is how we did it at Penn State, and this is how we did it at Minnesota, and not necessarily just merging, but also saying what's in Penn State's best interest moving forward.

There's always things that you try to clean up that you say, well, why do we do it that way, and no one really remembers why, it's just that's how we've always done it, and obviously that's never a good answer. So making sure that we continue to clean things up, and that's been a process. It's been a grind.

But everybody has been great with that, and obviously that's kind of been the focus point since we've come off the road because we need to be able to get ready and have everything going so that time spring ball hits, we can be rolling. So that spring will be important, and then obviously going into summer, so come fall, it doesn't look or feel -- well, maybe look but doesn't feel like a new offense, that we're a veteran team returning and we can play as such.

That's what I've got for you guys. Open it up to questions.

Q. You've talked a lot about the importance of the personality fits of your assistant coaches, and I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the personalities of the three new coaches since we really haven't have a chance to talk to them and how have things meshed in the first month or so with these guys?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, so it's interesting, you go through the interview process and try to kind of do your own research, then interview a guy, and either he kind of moves up your list or goes down your list based on that. And then you have the hire.

And then what happens is the time that we hired, you're on the road with these guys, seeing how they interact. I have all my guys once we hire them, have all my guys, if we have the ability to still go visit the homes and the schools of all of our new players, but then I also think it's really important that they call all the parents of our current players to introduce themselves, and that relationship is critical because we're all working to pour our hearts and souls into these young men.

So far, so good. I've gotten great feedback from all the parents. I've gotten great feedback from our current players, and the same thing with our coaches. And what I always try to do as well as sometimes I think it frustrates you guys sometimes, but I always -- I want more times than not for our current players and for our parents and for our recruits to hear it from me before they hear it from somebody else. So okay, we obviously knew about Sean leaving before anybody else, but how do I get that information to all of our players so it doesn't break on the internet before they've heard it from me and Sean. I think that's really important.

And then the same thing when we hire someone, that hopefully that person can call all of the commitments and talk to our players before it's announced publicly. I just think that's family business, and you love for it to be addressed there first. I don't necessarily feel like the public should be finding out at the same time as Shaka, if that makes sense.

So we try to do that whenever we can. It's harder than ever in today's society, but so far, so good. So far, so good. But obviously we've got to get this D-line one done. I don't see this dragging on very long. We've already started the process, and try to finish it up here sooner rather than later.

Q. What went into the decision to not renew Matt Limegrover's contract, and what made Phil Trautwein a candidate you wanted to get and obviously did lock up?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, I'd like to really kind of focus on kind of moving forward. Obviously we're very appreciative of the time that we had, and Coach did a great job. Coach did a great job. His family is awesome, all those types of things. But I felt like a change was needed, for a number of reasons that I don't know if are necessarily appropriate in this setting.

But Trautwein was on the list of guys that I was tracking. There's people that I know very well in this business that think very highly of him, and then what we try to do is I kind of have my list, then I talk to people, and that's kind of the old way to interview is you interview them, you talk to references. As you guys have heard me say before, I'm not into calling -- I'm not into calling your references, like you're giving me the names, they're all going to say wonderful things or you wouldn't give me their names, so I'm going to call people that I know.

So that's kind of the process. But then now I think one of the areas that's changed is being able to study the data. So having Michael Hazel or whoever it may be able to run the numbers, and how productive have they been, how productive has the offense been or the O-line has been, how many guys made all-conference, how many guys have gone to the NFL, and then obviously his story.

You talk about a guy that wanted to come to Penn State, didn't get a Penn State offer, from our region, which I don't think is the end-all, be-all, but does help. You have a guy from your region, the likelihood of stability increases, where if you hire a guy who's from New Mexico and something in that region opens up and it's closer to home, it makes it more challenging, so that factors in.

I think he has a story. I think he's got a story that is attractive to our current players and also to recruits in terms of was not a highly recruited guy, goes to Florida, wins two National Championships, starts for multiple years at left tackle, doesn't get drafted, finds a way to play in the NFL for five years, gets into coaching, trains under a tree, an O-line tree that I respect, and has had success, and then you couple all that with the people that I know and trust, and then watching film and then studying the data, it just all kind of made sense and aligned. So far, so good.

It's like anything else. You make a decision, and then each day you feel better about your decision or you don't. And so far, I've felt better about all the decisions that we have made daily, and that's seeing them in different settings. That's seeing them around our guys and how our guys respond to them. That's seeing them around our staff and how they interact with our staff. It's all of those things. I hope that answers your question.

Q. You had been very complimentary about the Minnesota game plan back in November, but what exactly did you see in Kirk that made you want to pursue him, and what do you hope that he brings to the offense and to your team?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Well, I think it's a bunch of things. You're talking about an experienced guy who's been calling plays and putting offenses together for a long time, won a National Championship at the University of Delaware, obviously has been kind of in two rebuilds now in Western Michigan and Minnesota, is from Pennsylvania. Some of my closest friends in the profession are his closest friends. We really didn't know each other that well, but my college roommate, Mike Santella, at East Stroudsburg, they worked together at University of Pennsylvania. Dave Brock, who worked for me at K-State and is now in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons is one of his close friends, so we were both able to kind of talk. He was able to talk to them, I was able to talk to them, kind of see if it made sense for each other. Being from Pennsylvania, and then obviously firsthand being able to watch the Minnesota offense go this year, I think that helped, too.

And then it's about fit. You get together with some people, and what I don't think we need is to -- we've been fairly successful over the last number of years, and with different coordinators. So I don't feel like we need to go hire someone, blow it up and start all over. Do we have someone that's experienced enough and has enough humility that will come in and say, okay, I'm secure enough and comfortable enough that this is how I do things, and there's core beliefs that I'm not willing to budge on, but here's other things where I'm smart enough and I've been in the business long enough, the areas where I can learn it and take some of the learning off the players will do that.

So finding somebody that says, okay, I'm really good at what I do, but also I have enough flexibility that I'm not just going to come in and blow everything up and start all over when that's not where we're at as a program, if that makes sense. So finding somebody that kind of was open to all those things, someone that I was going to be comfortable with, someone I thought was going to be comfortable with me, and I think was going to be a good fit for our players.

I think you guys will enjoy getting to know all these guys. We talked about creating some more opportunities for you guys to spend more time around the staff, which is some of the discussions that we've had with you guys. But yeah, I think you guys will be impressed, and I think you'll like what you see, not only on the field when it comes to production but just as a guy in this community, which is also something that's important to us.

Q. This is a recruiting question. Obviously you signed an entire class in December. What do you think are the pros and cons of that early signing day, and do you, I guess, prefer signing an entire class in December, or would you rather have it more fleshed out?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, I think the hard part always is you could make the arguments that you save a few because you never know what's going to show up in the transfer situation, a guy that may just be available late that you weren't anticipating. We had some people calling us late that you would have loved to have had a few more scholarships, but not necessarily holding any, just you wish you had more scholarships available. Obviously the way the season ended and things like that, I think, helps.

But I think at the end of the day, it's like anything else. We've got a really good prospect that we think can help us win that we've evaluated thoroughly and is a good fit here, do you take that now or do you wait for something later. You know, so we have taken that approach. But you could make arguments both ways. There's a lot of ways to do it. But we trust our evaluation process. We try to be as thorough as we possibly can. There's a lot of factors that go into it.

So yeah, I think so far, so good. We'll always approach the first signing period as the signing period. I think if a guy doesn't sign with you, he's telling you something. You've got to be willing to listen to what they're telling you. Words are great, actions are another. But as you guys know, every year we kind of get done something and we sit down as a staff and say, okay, what did we do, what can we do better. I think you should always be doing that. You should have a system of checks and balances and then you should have kind of a rehash section or whatever you talk about after everything. We had a junior day the other day. The next day we come in, what did we do well, what did we like, what will we do different. That's the same way we do it on Sundays after games.

We try to do that in every phase of our program, so we'll see, there could be a few tweaks, but I think we're pretty pleased with how the first signing day went. It's made for a beautiful day today. No drama.

I think that's the other thing that I like is for the most part, we don't have a whole lot of drama on signing day. The guys that are supposed to sign, sign. They're all in usually by 8:00 a.m. We don't release them to you guys publicly because we just want to spread it out throughout the day for content, but we compete in everything we do, so the first one that comes in, that's a competition, and that coach wins, and whoever gets the last one in, they have to buy the whole staff lunch.

Typically they're all in by 9:00 a.m., and we're kind of relaxing at that point and celebrating and kind of enjoying it.

So we haven't had a whole lot of signing day drama.

Q. In your receiver room, outside of K.J. Hamler, each of the past two years no one averaged more than two catches per game. What do you attribute that to, regarding that lack of production, and what gives you optimism with Taylor coming in that maybe there's going to be an uptick in 2020?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, we've got to be more consistent. That's in throwing the ball, in accuracy. We've got to be able to make the defense defend the entire field. One of the things if you look back with Trace, we did a great job of attacking that wide-field comeback a lot, taking that access, which most defenses are going to give you a soft corner to the field and try to take the shorter throws away. I thought we did a good job over the last number of years of attacking with our slots.

I think we've done a good job with our tight ends. We've got to do a better job getting the ball to our outside receivers, and that is accuracy, that is aggressiveness, that is consistently catching the ball, that is consistently creating separation. It's not one thing, it's a little bit of all of it, but we need more production, there's no doubt about it.

Being more explosive, being more productive. I think at the end of the day, we have to throw and catch for a higher percentage. I think that's the biggest thing that we can do, and that production will create more explosive plays just based on opportunities.

You know, the good thing is we're running the ball much better than we were probably four or five years ago, but for us to go where we want to go, we've got to do both at a high level.

The exciting thing is there's some really good opportunities for some wide receivers to come in and compete, and we think we've got some guys that are ready to kind of take the next step, and we need them to. You know, that'll be a focus point for the spring and the summer and obviously next fall.

And then specifically to Coach Stubblefield, again, a guy that has been a number of places, had a lot of conversations in hiring him about the stability aspect of it. But then on top of that, back to the stability thing, we need stability. The interesting thing is he needs it, too. One of the stories that a lot of people have talked about is he hasn't necessarily shown that in his career. So something that he needs and we both need right now. So I think that helps.

And then obviously a guy that not only has coached but also done it himself at a high level. You look at what he was able to do in this conference and nationally, pretty impressive, and also a guy that didn't do it, no disrespect to him, based on raw athleticism. He did it on techniques and fundamentals and mentality and understanding and things like that. If you go back and check his testing numbers from his pro day and combine, we're not recruiting Taylor Stubblefield here to Penn State right now. But to me, a guy a little bit like we're talking about with Coach Trautwein, a guy that based on his training and his preparation and his mentality and techniques and fundamentals was able to play at a really, really high level. Now if you can take the combination of going out and finding some really talented skilled players and then give them the training of a guy that found a way to be successful without that, you've got a recipe for a lot of success. That's going to be obviously important.

Q. James, during the Cotton Bowl, Sandy Barbour had told us to likely expect your contract details in early to mid January. I was hoping you could clarify, one, if you signed the contract yet, and if not, what the delay has been thus far and maybe when we can expect that release.
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, you're relentless, by the way, which I like. I respect it. I respect it.

Really there hasn't been a delay. As you can imagine, these contracts aren't like three pages of notes. So it's about language and making sure what Penn State is comfortable with and what we're comfortable with, and that takes time. So really I think what Sandy was talking about is there was a verbal agreement made at that time, and then it takes lawyers that get involved and make sure everything is ironed out and both parties are protected, and then it's signed. I think that's going to happen soon.

But I also know there's some things kind of within Penn State and things like that that I don't kind of know the process, so I don't want to sit here and say a time or a date, but it's agreed upon, and I think it should be here very soon. But that's why. There really was no hold-ups or concerns or issues on either party. It was just kind of going through all the red tape and the verbiage of contracts like that.

Did I -- was there another part of your question or did I answer it?

Q. I was just curious to clarify whether it was signed at this point or not.
JAMES FRANKLIN: No, but it's in a position now based on all the language cleaned on both sides that it should be signed soon. But what I don't want to say is when it's going to be signed and then you guys are wondering why it hasn't been released right away because I think there's some things that have to happen procedurally whether it's state laws or university policies, so I don't want to throw out a number and then as you get back to your demeanor, which is relentless, you're hammering me and Sandy saying where's it at, where's it at, so I don't want to say anything that puts me or Sandy or the university in a tough spot.

Q. I'm wondering if you have any comment, obviously there have been two lawsuits brought against you and also against the university since we last talked --
JAMES FRANKLIN: I think we've already released statements on those things. I think the same statement we had before covers it, as well.

Q. Have you decided, I know you guys obviously recruit nationally by position, but the new territories for the three new hires, do you know what those are?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, we had that done, but then what happens is whoever we hire for the D-line job based on their strengths and their background, it could affect it. That hasn't been resolved yet until we have all the pieces of the puzzle put together because it could change it based on their experience, based on their background and based on where they fit best.

Q. I want to ask you about something that the only thing that's more important than contracts and litigation would be quarterbacks. Kirk Ciarrocca has shown the ability over time to get more production out of a quarterback, especially after the first year. Did that bear out in the numbers when you were researching him and the studies that you did on him and his offenses, and was that something that was important to you when you were looking for a new offensive coordinator based on all the other criteria you talked about before?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, I think that definitely -- that definitely factors in. The difference that me and Kirk spent a lot of time talking about, too, is this isn't a rebuild. He was a part of two rebuilds. This isn't a rebuild. So we need to be able to come in and kind of hit on his year threes year one, if that makes sense.

I think also one of the things that's interesting, and you look at a lot of these hires, whether it's a head coach hire or whether it's a coordinator hire or things like that, a lot of it is based on timing, of when guys get there, and what players are in the program. I mean, Trace McSorley, Mike Gesicki, DaeSean Hamilton, guy by the name of Saquon Barkley, I could go on and on, that was a really good time. We were in position to take the next step.

And I think offensively we're in a similar position right now except for obviously the question mark that we all know: Wide receiver. That needs to happen. I think we've got a chance to be better on the O-line. I think we have a chance to obviously be better at quarterback year two. Whenever you're a first year starter that factors, or competition at that position. At the running back position, make the same argument. Tight end, make the same argument. So I think we're in a really good position.

It's a great time for Kirk to be here, but we also understand there is one position that we need to take the next step so that -- so we can be explosive, so that we can have balance, so that people don't feel like we can take the run away and force them to beat us throwing the ball, and obviously you're always most effective when you can force the defense to cover 53 and a third and 120. And when you do that, that causes stress, that causes conflict.

The thing that I think is going to be interesting, I know Kirk is excited about, is Kirk has never really had the running quarterback aspect of the game plan, and we have the personnel to do that, and we have the experience to do that, which is something he hasn't done. So I know he's excited about that. It was a big part of our discussions during the interview process.

So yeah, I think all those things that you brought up as well as some of the things that I just brought up and a number of other discussions I think makes it a desirable time to come to Penn State and also based on Kirk's experience a desirable time for us to get him.

I think the other thing, kind of to tie those two subjects together, that and the contracts, I also think it makes it pretty desirable right now for us to go out and hire people because they're coming in on the front end of a new contract with me. That always helps.

Q. How close are you to the 85 scholarship limit, and do you think you're going to have to tweak anything to get there?
JAMES FRANKLIN: We're close. I think that's probably the biggest challenge now more than ever is trying to guesstimate what your roster is going to be. It used to be in the old days it was guys leaving early for the NFL, and then it was attrition. For whatever reason the attrition was. And you could go back, what we would do is study 10 years at Penn State, what is the average attrition in a year, what is the average attrition come December, what is it. And then be able to take that number and be able to project what your number is going to be based on graduating seniors as well as attrition.

Well, obviously this transfer portal has changed everything because now we don't have a long enough sample size to look at it, and the numbers spiked. And there's just a path of least resistance now, and I think -- I know the media has got strong opinions on this nationally, and I kind of have opinions both ways. I'm not really a straddle-the-fence guy, but I do kind of straddle the fence on this one a little bit. I understand the reason for it. I don't think it's the right thing for college athletics. I don't think it's the right thing for college athletes. I don't think it's the right thing for our society. I feel like college athletics was one of the few places left where people had to battle through adversity and overcome, and now we're just like everything else where there's an easy way out.

But I get it. I get both arguments. I also think a lot of the people that have strong opinions don't understand all the other challenges that come with it, that come with it. And there are so many.

I sit, me and Pat Fitzgerald sit on the ethics committee with the AFCA. Every year at the AFCA we sit down with the NCAA, the recruiting staff of the NCAA that is part of enforcement and also rules and have discussions about the nature of college football, and there's a lot of things that are not being discussed that are problematic, legally that are problematic to the game, that are problematic to the student-athletes.

So I think a lot of times when we come up with these things, it's not as simplistic as we think. Name, image and likeness, let's just do it because it's the right thing to do because we all focus on the one kid that had the YouTube channel. It's not that simple. There's a lot of issues and factors from it. I get both things.

I also know there's been coaches in places that have abused it and blocked guys from transferring. But like most things, we go from one extreme to the other.

I don't know if I've answered your question or not. I don't even remember what your question was. I just started talking. What was your original question?

Q. How close you are to 85 --
JAMES FRANKLIN: Oh, yeah. So because of all of that, it makes it harder to do. But we're close. We're close, because the hard part is we want to be as aggressive as we possibly can to give us the best chance to get to the 85, which very rarely is anybody at the 85. So that's always the challenge.

Q. Kind of two parts here. One, there's a February dead period now. How does that impact you guys? What do you hope to get done? Really what's that done to January and March in recruiting? And then two, can you talk about the two guys you announced today? Jake and Levi could have gotten scholarships elsewhere, and they came here.
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, so I guess the first thing I'd say is you talk about the February dead period, I think it's really good because I know one of my concerns and one of a lot of coaches' concerns is the new recruiting periods and the new early visits and all those things, when do we spend time with our own players, which needs to be our priority. So I think this is helpful there. I think that helps it, or not being -- because even when we're on our own campus with our players, there's players coming to see us, which take us away from that. So I think that is helpful.

The thing I think is interesting is kind of your question but a little bit different is the interesting thing is the NCAA and really the AFCA and commissioners and ADs made the decision to take coaches off the road, head coaches off the road in May because we're not allowed to have contact. If you're the head coach and you come into a school, there's a pressure on that high school coach to get the guys in front of you because the parents are saying, you're telling me James Franklin was on my campus and my son didn't get a chance to talk to him? Well, we're not allowed to.

So we made that rule. Well, now when we've gone into an early signing period, all we've done is take that spring and created it in January and December. You know, so again, we made this change and it helped here, but it just created another problem because most people are 90 percent done with their recruiting class in the first signing period. So that's problematic and challenging.

I think there's good and bad with some of the changes. I think again, back to the -- it not being that simplistic is there's always unforeseen consequences to the decisions you make, and sometimes I think rules are kind of passed, and it's amazing how many times rules are passed and there's no football coaches part of the decision or part of the discussion. It's people sitting up here that aren't in the schools and don't understand the reality of what's actually happening out there.

So that's where we try to help in that ethics committee that I was talking about, try to help bridge that gap.

I do think Todd Berry and the AFCA has done a good job. He's much more active on the front end the last couple years in his role. You could make arguments both ways.

I would have -- I think I've said this before, I would have left the model alone because I think there's too many unforeseen consequences with the new model, and all we've done is sped it up, where there's guys committing and offering before you even have enough grades on them, before they have enough film. And then there's the guy that has the great senior year that a lot of times there's no room left for him.

Your point about Jake and Levi, we were able to announce those two guys because they have been accepted to school and paid their acceptance fee, which changes how we can deal with them by NCAA rule. There's a bunch of other walk-ons that we would have liked to announce, as well, but they're not in that category. We've got a number of guys that had scholarships turn scholarships down to come based on opportunities, based on their love of Penn State, based on it made sense financially, based on maybe their major or the business school or the engineering school or whatever it may be, and this is a very attractive place, and now you take the university being so attractive nationally, and then you take what the program has been able to do over the last number of years, this could make sense. This could make sense for a few families that may say, hey, my son is going to, number one, get a great education at Penn State, and number two, chase his dream of being the best football player he possibly can be, and Penn State can offer that based on all the services we provide, the nutritionists, the strength and conditioning, the sports science, all that kind of stuff, where maybe other programs can't offer those types of things.

And one other thing I would say is we have had some stories which you guys have covered: Carl Nassib who walks on here, 6'5", 218 pounds, makes first-team All-American, leads the nation in sacks, Jan Johnson. Been so many unique stories. But what I'll also tell you is in the recruiting process, no different with the scholarship players, we're not a school -- you guys have never heard us say, telling guys they're going to start as freshmen and offer playing time, which other schools do, or dangle the NFL carrot. We don't do that. We try to sell worst-case scenario. Same thing with these preferred run-ons. We don't sell them the fairy-tale. This is going to be hard. This is going to be hard, and these are the exceptions.

But as you know, everybody thinks it's going to be the fairy-tale. We try to be as fair and as transparent with that as we possibly can be, what it is like.

Q. You talked about studying best practices. What maybe can you learn from a program like Clemson, how they were able to take that next step into the top four there and apply it to your program?
JAMES FRANKLIN: Yeah, I think it's interesting, Dabo is a pretty good friend of mine. His wife and my wife are pretty good friends. We go on that Nike trip every year together. We'll be on it again this time, got some pretty good stories about golf carts with them, and I think I scared the heck out of Dabo and his wife on a golf cart one time.

But you know, it's interesting because if you look at his career and ours here, kind of very similar for a period of time, kind of the growth and things like that. Obviously they've made tremendous commitments, as well, which we're doing, as well. Maybe those things happened a little bit earlier in the process in terms of facilities and things like that.

But you know, I do think there's a lot of things to study. You know, a lot of things to study. A lot of similar philosophies.

I think it's a good one. There's a number of those out there to study and to look at and to maybe do a deep dive or go do facility visits. Me and Dabo will do a lot of that on this trip. We'll spend a lot of time talking -- another guy I spend a lot of time with that I have so much respect for is Gary Patterson, whom my wife also loves. That's her buddy.

So yeah, I think studying all these different things is really important, and then like always, maybe stealing some ideas and some concepts and philosophy that align with ours. I think you guys have heard me say this before, I think it's a mistake as a coach or as an organization to feel like you can take this from this school, school X and bring it to school Y. It has to align culturally with the university, with the philosophy, and when you can do that, you can really gain some significant advantages or perspective.

It's also valuable to say these are things that would not do.

But yeah, I think they're a really good example.

One last thing I'd like to say is I was to congratulate -- obviously there's a lot of sports I could do this with at Penn State, there's so much success all over our athletic programs, but I do want to congratulate Coach Chambers and the basketball program with what they're doing this season and the win last night was huge, so that's great. There's just so much success throughout all 31 of our sports, to see Coach Chambers who's battled for a number of years, and for him and the players like Lamar and Big Mike that have stuck around, to build this thing is special, and I couldn't be more happy for them and their program.

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