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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 30, 2007Joe PaternoTHE MODERATOR: Welcome to our weekly teleconference. We'll start with a question. Q. As we enter November, how would you assess your team, and what did you learn about it from the Ohio State game? COACH PATERNO: Well, I think we have a good team. I don't know whether we have a great team yet; I think we're working towards it. I think Saturday would be tough to be critical of them, because they played against a very fine football team. They played a great game. I thought we played well. We went into the game with the idea that we were not going to turn the ball over, that we were not going to lose the game in the kicking game and hopefully make a play in the kicking game, which we did, and not have stupid penalties. So we did what we had to do. Unfortunately, from our side of it, Ohio State was a little better, played a little better, and maybe did a little better coaching job. But I think we're going to be okay. Q. With three regular season games left, would you consider playing Daryll Clark a little bit more to get ready for 2008 maybe? COACH PATERNO: No, I don't think that would be fair to Anthony Morelli. Morelli's played hard, stayed with the team, the team is behind him. I think Morelli has done a good job. Morelli is certainly not the reason we haven't won a couple of ball games, so I think you've got to be careful what you do there. Q. You guys have had to readjust your goals a couple times this year. I wonder is the thinking now if the -- COACH PATERNO: Can you tell me what the goals -- you make statements. What kind of goals did we readjust? Q. The players are on every week talking about after this loss we're going to try and back and do this -- COACH PATERNO: Then that's your answer. Q. Some of those players also were on earlier today. The defensive people were talking about some different things, and they said one of the problems seems to be the teams are getting a feel for what your defense is doing and doing things like the short patterns to take advantage of it. Is that something you've noticed in retrospect, that maybe teams are getting a sense of predictability from defense? COACH PATERNO: Well, obviously when you're a player, you have a little different perspective of what's going on. I certainly -- people are going to look at what you're doing and try to adjust to what you're doing. I would not disagree with that part of it. Whether they throw the short passes or the long passes -- we didn't get beat with the short pass; we got beat with a couple of long passes. On third down passes, yeah, but that's because we didn't stop the run on first and second down. You know how many third and 3s, third and 4s we had? So I'm not sure where we are on that end of it. I think that's one of those perceptions, reality, maybe, and we have to address that with the kids, I don't know. But I thought we didn't play a great game defensively; I think that's true. On the other hand, you have to give Ohio State credit. Ohio State is a good football team. They played well, and we went in with the idea that we had to win the turnover battle, and I think no stupid penalties, and neither team put the ball on the ground. They put the ball on the ground against Michigan State, and they picked it up and ran it for two touchdowns. That's what kept Michigan State in the game. Ohio State learned from that, and they did a better job this week. I think you've got to give the other guy credit. Q. How has Tony Davis been holding up since Friday night, and how tough is it not to have him available against a team like Purdue? COACH PATERNO: I don't like to make a lot of excuses. We played without three first-stringers. We played without Hayes, who is probably as good of a pass rusher as Evans, and we didn't have him in so they could spend more time with Evans, and we played without Tony Davis. He will not play this week. He had his appendix taken out Thursday or Friday. But, yeah, sure, when you lose a first-stringer that's been playing as much as he has the past couple of years, it handicaps you in things you want to call, what you want to do in the defensive scheme, and we didn't know until Thursday that he was not going to play. All of the sudden he had these acute pains, so we had no time to adjust. But in all fairness to that, we played Rubin, and he played well. There again, you've always got to be careful when you say something about one thing and it takes away from somebody else, because I thought Rubin stepped up to the plate and played well. Q. How about Curtis Painter, 24 touchdowns and 6 interceptions look impressive. I'm wondering what you're seeing of him and his receivers on film. COACH PATERNO: He's impressive. He's a good football player, and they have some good receivers, particularly the kid from south Jersey who can run like the wind. We will have our hands full. This will be a difficult game for us, because they are -- this is as good of a Purdue team -- sometimes your memory plays tricks on you, but I think it's as good of a Purdue team as I've seen. Solid on defense, two good defensive ends, and the quarterback is fine. They have only lost two ball games; they lost to two teams we lost to: Ohio State and Michigan, and they've beaten everybody else. It's an important game for us, and I think it's going to be a tough game for us. Obviously whether we can handle the quarterback will be important, but you can't overplay them, because they've had one or two backs hurt who are back now, who are quick and a different type of running back than Ohio State. Ohio State running backs were strong and tough. They're quick and tough. Ohio State knocked us back -- we were in good position, but when we went in for the tackle, we weren't strong enough to take them back, so they ended up second and 6, second and 5, and we ended up always with that behind us. So this is a good football team, believe me. Q. I was wondering, at this point in the season, is there maybe one thing that you hoped to improve upon the most as you head into this week? Has there been one thing maybe that you've been the most disappointed with at this point in the season? COACH PATERNO: I really couldn't answer that. I think we've done -- well, we've had more injuries that than we usually have at this time. And we've had -- and with young players, you get some kids that you've got to every once in a while kick them in the backside, because maybe they cut a class or don't do what they should do. We've had a couple of incidents since last spring -- or we had an incident this last spring, and we had one this fall, and I had to get rid of one kid. And that's been a distraction, but other than that, I think we're doing well. We've played a couple of teams that have done well. When we played out on the road at Illinois, I think we didn't play real well early, but I think we played well, and Michigan, you know, I don't want to get into officiating, but that was a bang-bang game with one call here, one call there. So I think overall, we've played as well as we can. I wasn't happy with the Saturday against Ohio State, because I think they did everything we asked them to do. They hustled, they didn't turn the ball over, they didn't make stupid penalties, so we're getting better. We had a good kicking game, and obviously had a great play on the kick-off coverage -- kick-off return. So I think we're making progress. I'm a little disappointed in me, maybe, that I haven't done a couple of things that could turn the tide in a game, but I think the kids have measured up to everything we expected them to. Q. Dan Connor is five tackles away from breaking Paul Posluszny's all-time tackle record. What kind of impact has Dan had on restoring Penn State to what it used to be? And by the same token, is it disappointing that a kid like Dan, who could have went anywhere, will graduate never having had the opportunity to play for a team competing for the national championship? COACH PATERNO: He had an opportunity two years ago. Q. Yeah, but he wasn't in the actual game. COACH PATERNO: In '05? Q. Yeah. COACH PATERNO: I'm not so sure you're right on that. '05, '06, '07, I don't know what you're talking. It's hard for me to answer the question. Q. Dan Connor, he said earlier one of his proudest accomplishments was that he helped Penn State go to a couple of bowl games, win games, so forth. Players that come into the program when it's struggling, does that hold any special significance for you? COACH PATERNO: Absolutely. A couple of years ago I said we were only a couple of players away from being a pretty good football team, and I think most of the people, when we get them around the program, and we can get them up for a visit, and they're around the squad and the coaches and the facility and the whole attitude -- I don't think anybody could come up to this game on a Saturday with the crowd and the enthusiasm of the students and everybody is involved in the game and the kind of community we have without thinking about coming to Penn State. That doesn't mean necessarily that they're coming. So I think those kids come up, and they take a look around, and they understand that there are possibilities here. Sure we fell a little short -- you know, we were three seconds away in '05. I mean, I don't know how -- you can't expect anybody -- is Florida, who was at one time -- everybody thought they were going to be national champs every year. They've lost couple of games. Somebody else loses a couple of games -- that's the way it is. The competition today is on such an even keel, there have been so many good players. Ohio State has been fortunate, and I think you have to give Jimmy Tressel credit that they have been able to be in there now for a couple of years, and they've been fairly -- a lot of things have gone their way, and I think a lot of that has to be attributed to their recruiting and Jim and his staff. So I don't want to detract from anything they've done, but here is Southern Cal, and all of the sudden they're out of the national picture. Would you have said that two years ago, a year ago? But I think kids have to look at the potential, what the stability is, the commitment that's being made by the institution and the coaching staff, and hopefully get in there and some things work out for them. You know, obviously we're a couple plays away from being where we could be in it this year. It's a funny year. I think Ohio State came in here and gave us a good grubbing, and we've got to learn from that. Other than that, we've been pretty competitive. Q. It's easy for us to look at Anthony Morelli and Dan Connor and see what they've been able to do over the course of their career, but will you be happy to see the lesser-known seniors get recognized on Saturday, and what does that type of day mean to you? COACH PATERNO: I'm glad you asked that question. I think there are a lot of guys that go out there every day and demonstrate, even if they're not going to play, or who do play, who really don't get much recognition, who are committed to the program, committed to Penn State, proud of the fact that they're part of a program that's got some tradition, a lot of tradition, and that there are certain things that go with being a Penn State football player. It's amazing to me on a game day to see guys like LaVar Arrington and Anthony Adams all on the sideline, coming back all the time, Carter and his mother, and there are so many kids of those who just want to come back. Tamba Hali came back this weekend; they had an open day. I said, "What are you doing here?" and he said, "We have an open day," and I said, "Get the heck out of here and have some fun," and he said, "I just wanted to tell you that I miss you." I felt like crying. So I think there are things that go into being a college football, whether or not it's at Penn State or someplace else. It goes beyond what you guys are out there -- when I say "guys" I mean the media -- the way you're looking at this thing. Sometimes you're looking at it without really understanding the kind of commitment these people are ready to make. People worried about whether we're going to bounce back, how we're going to handle Purdue. I didn't say a word to the squad; I didn't meet with them yesterday. I just wanted to see how they practice. They went out there, a lot of enthusiasm, Golden and the captains went out there, and we had an hour-and-10-minute practice, and they were enthusiastic, talking about looking to win the next three, and I didn't say a word to them. I think you underestimate the kind of commitment these people make to their team and to their school and to just playing football. I don't mean just Penn State; I'm talking about most of the people in the country. Q. A lot of teams are employing the spread offense, but Joe Tiller was the guy who brought it to the Big 10, and it's been one of the best offenses in the conference over the past couple of years. Is it a different kind of spread than other teams have used? What's making it so successful? COACH PATERNO: I think when Joe came in -- I've made that statement several times. I think Joe turned the philosophy or the character of the Big 10 -- you guys use the words you want to use -- because he came in here and started throwing the ball around a little more, spread us out, threw the football. And when he came in from where he had been coaching, they said, "Well, you can't do what you did out there," and he said, "Why not?" and they said, "Because of the weather," and he says, "Don't you think it's cold out there in Wyoming?" He wind blows out there. He came in and he knew what he wanted to do, and he's been a big -- had a big impact on this conference, a big impact on it. And he's one of the best people you'll ever know. Q. You talked about how young your team is, and if you look at Ohio State's roster and who is playing for them, they're about as young as you guys are. Do you learn anything from what they're doing in terms of how to turn kids over and get them ready to play quick? Is there anything about that in the Ohio State system that impresses you? COACH PATERNO: Well, I think they are young, and I think we are young, but I don't think you're young after 9 games, I said that coming into the game. I said that to a group of people at a lunch we had. I said you're only young so long; we had played eight games. Our problem was we lost a couple of kids we counted on, but that's still making excuses when really you just got your ears kicked in. I think Ohio State has done a really good job -- I think we've got to evaluate maybe a couple of areas where we've recruited, and I think we've got to obviously learn -- we played well Saturday. We only had the ball 46 or 47 times, all right? We played the game exactly the way I wanted to play it, but yet they were able to make drives of 89, 90 yards. We kicked the ball on fourth and 2 because I figured we will get them down there and two minutes to go, two time outs left, make them kick it back to us, and we'll go in 17-10. They took the ball and went around. They've done those kinds of things, which we haven't done yet. Now in all fairness, their a little stronger than we were, and I've got to -- we've got to probably reevaluate exactly where we want to go as far as size and those kinds of things. I've never been a guy for size; I've always been a guy for speed, and maybe we've got to reevaluate that, I don't know. I'm certainly not going to do it this week. I've got to worry about Purdue. I'm not going to worry about where we're going next year. But we're all right. We may not be quite -- after looking at the game Saturday, Ohio State may be one step ahead of us because of their organization and the fact that they had a couple of people who could dominate the game inside. We haven't been able to get -- we need somebody maybe who can dominate the game inside, so we can take more advantage of our outside people. They were able to take advantage of their outside people, because we had to worry more about their inside people. So it's a balance, and we've got to get the balance. Q. You reference to fourth and 2 -- COACH PATERNO: I knew you were going to ask that. A "would-be" coach. Q. Earlier in your career you had a reputation for gambling. Have you found yourself changing in terms of number of chances and do you -- COACH PATERNO: No, no, no -- I thought it was a good call, I thought it was a good call. My thought, we had two time outs, over two minutes to go. If we don't make it to the 38 on fourth and 2, the way they were going, we were going in, and instead of 17-7, we would go in 20-7. The kid could kick the 50 yard field goal. My thought was they were going to kick off to us, two time outs left, put them down in the hole, make them kick it back to us. Shot first down, we go in at 17-10, and unfortunately we didn't hold them. They took the ball and took it out. If you look at it that way, yeah, it was a bad call. But I would do it again. Q. Wallace has made a lot of big plays. COACH PATERNO: Absolutely. Q. Do you think you're getting enough out of him where you -- COACH PATERNO: I don't know. I think that's a good question, and a pertinent question. I would take exception to your first question, because I felt I would do the same thing again. Wallace is a kid that's been a little bit that way, and until we get ourselves squared away in a better position, I think that's a good observation. I think we ought to try to get Wallace a little more. Q. You had Anthony Morelli talking about his final game. Can you talk about his career here, and what he's gotten out of this program, and what he's given to you? COACH PATERNO: I think Anthony Morelli has been a solid kid. He hasn't always had the top cast of characters around him outside of the white house! We've had some bumps and bruises and things like that, but I think over all he played well, and I think he's going to -- I think he'll go on to the next level and play, I really do. I think he's got the arm, I think he's just -- he needs to get a little bit more -- he's got to be a little more comfortable. You know, we've played a couple of teams in the last couple of years that just, you know, slaughtered him. We didn't pass-protect well enough and the whole bit. So I think Anthony -- I hope he's enjoyed it, and I hope he'll have some success afterwards. Q. (Away from microphone.) COACH PATERNO: Who knows. These kids don't tell you, but I think the criticism is always on the quarterback, and unfortunately it's not fair. Q. Six passing touchdowns allowed the last two games. Can you evaluate the play of the secondary? COACH PATERNO: I think we have to evaluate ourselves a little more with that. I think if we -- the Indiana game was -- most of the time that stuff happens after it was all over. I think against Ohio State we've got to take a good look at a couple of things we're doing. To be very frank with you, I underestimated the one kid that made the long touchdown. He's a kid -- what's his name, Shore? That kid -- what? Oh, Smalls, Smalls. We put our corners in a tough situation, we really did. We didn't change up maybe enough on that. But I think the kids played hard and worked hard and maybe in this day and age whether you can match up a corner with a wide-out without pressure -- and I give Ohio State credit. They took a lot of ours that we -- I think Jim and his staff outcoached us. They did a couple of things really well. Q. Can you talk about the play of Dan Lawlor filling in for Matt Hahn? Were you pleased at the way he played on Saturday? COACH PATERNO: I thought he did well. He didn't have a lot of opportunity to carry the ball -- I don't think he carried the ball. I don't think -- we threw the ball to him once. He'll get better. Q. Brendan Perretta will be here in a few minutes. They're bringing him in. What kind of things has he done in his career as a guy who came here as a walk-on? COACH PATERNO: He's a great -- he's the kind of kid you always want to have around. He would do anything you asked him, whether it's on specialty teams, always a good back-up wide out. And right now he would have to be ready to play a lot of football if somebody got hurt in the secondary. He's intelligent, and he practices hard. He's -- he's just a great kid to have on your squad. And he's so close to being -- he's playing behind King and the other kid on the other side, but he goes out there every day trying to get better, and if I had put him on offense -- if we had kept him on offense, he would have maybe been playing behind a couple of guys when we had a couple of kids that we thought could play. We had a freshman kid in here by the name of Moye that got hurt, and he hasn't been able to show up and Bell and McDonald, some of those kids. Perretta has been a good kid, a real asset to this program. He's a walk-on, but he got a scholarship. Q. Some of the players were saying they didn't clean the stadium after last week's game. Were they given a week off? COACH PATERNO: They did what I asked them to do. There wasn't one kid that didn't show up. If one or two kids hadn't shown up on a Sunday, I probably would have given them another week. They went, what, five, six weeks up to this one? I think they -- I didn't do that necessarily to punish them. I did that because I felt that they ought to have some idea that when -- as a team somebody has to say, hey, we don't want to do that, and the thing is I wanted them to appreciate the fact that they have the best of all worlds. They have a free education, people who know who they are. They play before a crowd like we had the other day, and I wanted them to go up there and see the kids who -- I didn't know we had -- we have a women's rowing team. One day I went up there, and they were all cleaning up the place to make a couple of bucks for their program. We have a cross-country team that's a club sport, and men and women trying to make a couple bucks. And I thought -- I've always -- I mean, this didn't just come to my head. Years ago I used to say to myself, boy oh boy sometimes you don't realize how significant playing sports as rugby and these things are to these kids, that they're willing to go clean up a stadium to make money to get a bus to take them someplace to compete, and get somebody to clean up the practice field. I thought it was good for our kids to realize how fortunate we have it. So I think we -- I don't want to belabor the point. I think we made the point to them, and I think they understood. If some of them had gone up there and given me a problem with it, then I might have. I had coaches go up there and clean up with them. I had a lot of coaches -- I went up there on Sundays to watch and help move a bench or something like that. But I think what we wanted to do we did, and I think that's enough. Q. Looks like Purdue is playing better defensively the past few weeks. What do they do well on that side of the football? COACH PATERNO: Well, they've got a -- they've got a couple -- their defensive ends play really well, and their scheme is a good one. They're going to make us run the football and that's -- and, you know, we've got to figure -- hope we can do it. Because what they do is they're not going to give you a lot of one-on-one or anything like that on the outside, so it's solid, sound. It's a whole new scheme in the sense that Joe lost -- coach Tiller lost a couple of coaches, and he rebuilt the staff, and the staff that's in there now is playing it a little bit differently. They look like they're not quite -- they're a good blitzing team, and they do a blitz from the two deep, which is a defensive scheme for those of you who may not know that. So it will be a challenge for us; it's tougher than we've seen, and we're going to have to score points. If they can score points -- they're -- this is going to be a tough football game. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. End of FastScripts |
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