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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 2, 2008Joe PaternoTHE MODERATOR: Welcome to our weekly teleconference with Coach Paterno. Q. Do you expect to learn more about your team this week against Oregon State? If so, are you looking forward to that? COACH PATERNO: Well, I don't think there's any question we should know a lot more about ourselves this week. Yeah, you'd like to get excited about the fact that you're winning game; I don't care against whom. But I think we've got to be realistic that that was a tough assignment for the Coastal Carolina kids to come up here with that kind of crowd and the whole bit. But they've got some good athletes, and I was pleased we came away from it, you know, playing with no turnovers, minimum penalties. A couple of stupid penalties, and playing fairly disciplined football game and some kids played for their first time in a football game played well. But that's a long shot from playing against a team as Oregon State. Oregon State's a good football team. So I think what we have to do is just see if we can get a little better. As most of you have heard me say before, if you've got a good football team, it probably gets better from the first game to the second game and any time in the season. We'll know a lot more about our football team this Saturday. Q. Oregon State passed for more than 400 yards against Stanford in their opener. Is there offense comparable to anything you've seen in the Big Ten or is it a lot different? COACH PATERNO: I think Oregon State got behind a little bit. I don't think that was necessarily their game. I don't know Mike Riley really well. I've coached against him. Except I know him by reputation and we've been on some Nike trips together. I think he's a really nice person, and obviously an outstanding coach. But I don't think I'd go by the fact that they threw the ball as much as they did against Stanford. I think they get behind a little bit and a couple of things happen there. So I think we're going to be ready. We've got to be ready to handle the running game. So I don't know whether I would overreact to the amount of throwing they did last Thursday night. I think we've got to be ready for a more balanced attack. I think everybody saw it. Q. You were talking the other day about your defensive line. I know Gaines moved inside for a few plays. I wonder how much that gives you versatility, and how well Maybin played on Saturday? COACH PATERNO: Maybin? Q. Yeah. COACH PATERNO: He played all right. Maybin's got a long way to go. We've got better players than he playing right now. Maybin some day will be good. But Gaines and Evans, Hayes, I thought those kids played really well. And I think Maybin eventually will be a good football player. But he's got to be a little more disciplined. Not make as many mistakes and those kinds of things. But he hasn't played a lot. He's still young. I thought overall we did all right. I think Coastal Carolina when they decided to do a couple things inside, they did it well. The kids ran hard. Couple of those kids are quick. Obviously they're not -- they don't have the kind of depth and the size and maybe the power that a team like Oregon State has. But I think overall we did a decent job. So we've got to be better. Because, as I said, I don't think Oregon State's going to come up and throw the ball 50 times. I would be surprised. I think we've got to be ready to stop a couple running plays. Q. If you would reverse roles with Oregon State, you'd been away last week, now this week you're facing having to go across country. How would that impact the way you prepare your team and how hard you can push them in practice? COACH PATERNO: Well, I don't like to coach somebody else's team. I've got enough troubles coaching my own team. I think the one thing that I would think that Mike Riley has going for him is the fact that he did coach at San Diego State. And I'm sure -- I mean, San Diego, not State, the pro team. And would have had to take a team across the country to play in the NFL. And he's got -- he would have a good feel for the problems that he faced - the clock changing on you and all those kinds of things. So I think they'll come here prepared and they'll be ready to go. Mike will have them ready to play. And I don't think there will be any -- we can't hope that something's going to happen in the way of their preparation that's going to make it easier for us. I don't believe that at all. I think he knows what he's doing. He's had the experience of taking a team across the country, and I think we just have to understand it. Forget about where they're coming from. Take a look at their personnel, take a look at the way they're coached and take a look at what we have to do better in order to win. Q. How concerned are you with the ability of Oregon State's wide receivers to have to be quick across the board? COACH PATERNO: I think they're very good. I am concerned about them. In fact, we had a long talk Sunday night about it. Again, our numbers are not -- I mean names don't mean much. Numbers are the guys I look at when I look at the tapes. And I stayed up until quarter to 1:00 eastern time on Thursday night to watch the game with Stanford. And I was very impressed with them, and I'm very impressed with their quarterback. I think the quarterback is a very poised kid. He had to make some tough plays to keep them in the ballgame. You know, Oregon State, the kid doesn't fumble it in the end zone, they might be in an overtime game. They gave Stanford a lot, and they really beat themselves. Oregon State beat themselves. So I can't go into that game thinking we're going to have our hands full, and nothing's changed. Q. How did you assess the linebacker play you got against Coastal Carolina on Saturday? COACH PATERNO: I think it was good. It wasn't great. It was good. I think Cole had a lot of pressure on him to play, and really run the show up front. I think he did well. I think a couple of the -- I think maybe Gbadyu and Bowman played well. Sales at time played well. Couple of the younger kids we stuck in there played a little hesitantly. But overall I thought it was a good first outing for them. Q. What kind of memories do you have about Irv Pankey, and his son's one of the starting linebackers on Oregon State. I don't know if you've noticed him at all? COACH PATERNO: Pankey was a great kid. I can still remember Irv in the locker room after we played Maryland. Irv was at the game. He came in. He was a great big kid, big smile. He was a heck of a player. As a matter of fact, one time I was trying to talk him into being a coach, and I might have hired him as an offensive line coach. You know, if the kid's anything like his old man, it will be a fun game from Irv. Irv was a great guy to coach, and I enjoyed coaching him. It's funny, last week Richardson's brother's playing against us. This week we've got Pankey's kid playing against us. I don't know. I must be getting old. Q. What did a kid like Josh Hull, a former walk-on, what did he do to go from a walk-on to now the starting middle linebacker at linebacker U? COACH PATERNO: Well, he came here as a walk-on. We encouraged him. He's a great student. Wanted to come to Penn State. He's down the road, in fact, I think his folks work at the university. So he started out with a little break on his tuition and some things. Took a look at the situation, thought he could play, and he went to work. You know, each year he's gotten better, and Ron Vanderlinden has done a great job with him. Smart, tough, and very, very committed to being good. That's a pretty good combination. He's strong, he's about 230, 235. He, as I said, he's an engineer and a great student. He handles the engineering classes as well as coming out to practice. He's a great kid. His kid brother, we had had hopes for who is working on. But he's got a bad knee. We haven't been able to clear him to practice yet. But it's a good family and he adjusted. Those are the kind of stories that you like to be associated with. Q. The offensive line has been playing great the last year or so. It's also one of the smaller offensive lines in the country with average height and width. How hard do you guys have to work to keep the weight down on these guys? And how athletic do you think it makes them on the field? COACH PATERNO: I hope I heard everything you said. I think you said how do we keep their weight down is basically the question? Q. Yeah, and how does that benefit them to play a little bit lighter like that? COACH PATERNO: Well, there's a natural body weight. We take their body fat all the time. You can be 275 pounds and have a body fat percentage of 28, 29%, and, you know, you're just carrying dead weight. That's not going to help you. So the people in the training room, J.T. Thomas and Jeremy and the doctors, they'll periodically just weigh them and test their body fat. We have a certain percentage of body fat that we think is acceptable for different positions. If you're over 22% let's say -- and I'm throwing that figure out there without being sure I've got the figures correctly -- if you're over 22%, I don't care if you weigh 400 pounds, you've got to get down. You've got to get down where your body weight the percentage of your body fat would be under 22%. If you're a wideout and you're over 8, 9, 10% body fat, you're too heavy. I mean weight is not the answer. It's strength and the power that you can generate, the shot, the quickness, all those kinds of things. And excess weight does not help you. It does not help you. We have two really fine freshmen kids that one is about 32% body fat. Until he gets down, he's not going to play. But he's a heck of a prospect. The other one's about 29%, and he's in the same boat. So we work hard to make sure they're at their optimum weight. Whatever that is, it depends on their body structure, you know, and all the things that all of us would like. If we all had our body fat taken today, all right, where would we go? We're going to go to the Mayo Clinic. Q. I was wondering if you had a chance to talk to Mike Mauti at all, and if his family's okay or if he's discussed anything with the hurricane down there with you this week? COACH PATERNO: Who is he talking about? Q. Michael Mauti. COACH PATERNO: Well, you know, actually we went out to practice yesterday. Monday's kind of a let's get organized kind of thing. And I had in the back of my mind to ask him how things are going. Now Rich, his dad and mom were up at the game this past weekend, and there was no mention of the hurricane. But this morning, Sue watches television early in the morning. I know you guys don't believe me, but I very rarely watch television. She said that New Orleans missed it. Now I'm not quite sure exactly where in Louisiana the Mautis would be relative to a hurricane hit. I'll talk to him today about it, but I would think I would have probably gotten a telephone call from somebody saying the Mautis had to move or something like that. But Rich, the dad, and his wife were up here this past weekend and we spent a little time together. Q. Are you worried about things like motivation and focus when a really good player like a Pat Devlin has to deal with the disappointment of not starting? COACH PATERNO: Well, I think the biggest problem we have are you guys, to be frank with you. I think the kids go out there, practice hard, and they play, play well. Clark played, played well. Cianciolo didn't play much, but he did good job when he was in there. They practice well. I don't see any difference in it. I think when you come into a program such as this one, you've got to figure there's going to be some competition. You know, Devlin's only a sophomore eligibility-wise, he's got two more years after this. I think he's got a great future. I think Clark's got two years, they'll be battling each other for another couple of years. I think that's pretty good. It will make them both better. So I have not seen anything different. I pat them on the back after the game and said, hey, nice going. You had a good day. Keep concentrating. Said the same thing to Clark. Now you got that one behind you. Maybe you can relax a little bit more, but stay focused and let it go at that. I would hope that both those kids are mature enough and smart enough, understand the situation. They're working hard to be the best they can be. Q. You talked about the improvement between week one and week two. Why is that the case? Why is that most important compared to any other week? COACH PATERNO: Well, that's a good question, and I'm not sure why it is. In most of the really good football teams we've had, when you get that first one under your belt, particularly when you have a lot of young players, they're a little bit nervous going in there. Not quite sure of themselves. They haven't quite bonded together. They don't know what it is to be in a huddle in a game. Now you may not get as big an improvement in the first game and second game when the first one everything went so well for us early, as opposed to maybe a pretty tough first game. Then you go to the second game. I think it's just get it over with. Some of these kids haven't played before in front of 105,000, 106,000 people. Then you can build on some game mistakes. You can say, well, we told you you shouldn't do this. It could be an I told you so kind of deal. But my experience has been that's not always true. My experience has been we come out of a football game after the first one, if you've got a good football team, it seems to kind of be a lot better the second game, and you start to build on it. We're fortunate in this game that we're going into a game against a very good football team. Most of our guys stayed up and watched that Oregon State-Stanford game. We were talking yesterday a little bit, and they were very aware of how good Oregon State is. The score, if we had not seen that game on television, the score might be misleading. So it's hard for me to pinpoint why, but I do think it's my fact is right. Q. Stefen Wisniewski said this morning they felt like the line was better because they've got more experience playing with each other. Is it tough to have a really good line more than every once every two or three years, because once they get experience, they have to graduate? COACH PATERNO: I think it's easier if you get a line. I think Oregon State's going through that right now with their offensive line. They started that game -- Oregon State's going to be a lot better football team this week than they were against Stanford, particularly with their running game because of exactly what you said. That's a new offensive line. Well, not the offensive line, but defensive. I've got myself turned around here a little bit. But I think that's a good observation by Steve. But these guys play a lot of football. Now if we're fortunate enough that we don't have to use a lot of kids before they're ready and we can keep some of the kids behind them healthy, we can put them in practice. We can do a lot of things so that we really have a back-up. And maybe next year when we lose 4 or 5 of the first stringers, we won't be in a situation you know you're referring to. It depends on kids. It depends on attitudes, mentalities, competitive confidence, those kind of things. There's no one -- there's just no way to say this is what's going to happen every year. It doesn't work out that way. Q. The two conferences obviously have a long history playing each other. Would you like to see like a Big Ten-Pac 10 type of challenge like they do in basketball with different conferences especially now that you're playing 12 games? COACH PATERNO: Yeah, I haven't thought about it. That's the first time anybody really brought that up. I have felt that the Big Ten ought to have a Big Ten championship game as they do in Texas-Oklahoma people, and the Southeast Conference. But I hadn't thought about -- I play UCLA, let's say in a conference challenge kind of thing. It's a little tougher than it is in basketball, because in basketball you get so many more games. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I'm not so sure I would want to take a team across the country every year and vice versa. If I was on the coast whether I'd want to take a team east every other year. I don't know. But not enough to say about it. Television will tell us what we're going to do. Q. Brett Brackett is 6' 6", significantly taller than your other three receivers. What kind of advantage does that give him in the passing game when he's not on the field? COACH PATERNO: Well, he's 6' 6", but he's a good athlete. Now if he was6'6", a big gangly kid -- there was a kid at Notre Dame a couple of years ago, he was a baseball player, and he was 6'5". Brackett's a good athlete, he just happens to be 6' 6". I don't know if he's quite 6' 6", he might be 6' 5". But he's a good athlete. Being taller helps when you're a wideout, because he can get them out there on the corner, and when you get really good with your passing game, we're not that good right now, not yet. You put the ball up for grabs and he can grab it. He can jump. He's a good basketball player. He's going to be a really good wideout. He's working his way into it right now. Q. So Oregon State gets the sweep with the wide receivers and they've had success getting about ten yards a clip with it. What makes that so successful, and what can you do to try to stop it? COACH PATERNO: You've got to practice against it. But, yeah, that's all the series they have. The kid goes out there, and they either give it to him, pitch it to him or they hand it to the guy coming up on the inside zone play. It's a good solid series. You have to be able to handle it. We were going to play a wishbone with the option, we'd have to handle that. If they were running to play some people with the shotgun or running the handoff and the keep, and the quarterback option with the trail guy, those are all little things you've just got to go out there and coach it. Try to get them a little bit out of character. It's a clever series. It's a clever series of plays. We're working on it. Q. Did you run that same theory back in Brooklyn? COACH PATERNO: No, we didn't run that one. We'd didn't have a quarterback that could run. All he could do was dunk the ball on it. Q. There is the potential of bad weather this weekend with the hurricane? Are you planning to prepare for that? How would that affect you? COACH PATERNO: Not yet. Right now we're just trying to get organized. We spend most of the morning just trying to put together the plays we want to run versus what we think we're going to get, and the defenses that we have to make sure we're lined up properly to handle some of the formations and some of the things that Oregon State does. And then once we get comfortable that we've acquainted our squad with what they're going to see or we think they're going to see, then I think we'll start maybe one night we'll wet ball. That kind of thing. It's pretty tough to prepare for the kind of weather that we may get. Except for the fact that you've got to get the people that handle the ball, they have to have a wet ball. Ordinarily we do that every Thursday night anyway. We get some buckets out there and put the footballs in a bucket of water. If we have a prediction of weather so that the snap is and punting and all that stuff. Get used to handling a wet ball, try to be prepared. If the weather forecast still looks as if it's going to be a tough day on Saturday, we'll do a couple of things on Thursday a little differently. But I'm not going to change up the routine until I find out for sure. Q. Joe Tiller at Purdue, Bobby Bowden at Florida State have succession plans for what happens when they leave. What kinds of conversations have you had about that and what kind of conversation would you like to have when you're done coaching here? COACH PATERNO: I talked to Joe and I told him he's nuts. Oh, we haven't had any. Sorry, you're not going to get much response. I've answered that question 58 times already. I'm sorry to be rude. But, no, we haven't even talked about that. I'm trying to concentrate on Oregon State. Q. You say you don't like to coach other teams, but the way Oregon State lost that game with that fumble, I'm sure you've had situations in the past where a guy's had a play at the end and the game's not going your way. How would you handle that and try to keep his spirits up? COACH PATERNO: I don't know. If a couple kids from Oregon State walked in this room, I wouldn't know who they were. If it were one of the kids that I know and know their personality and know some things, that's one thing. All right? I mean, I haven't got the slightest idea how Mike should handle it. He knows his team. I don't know the kid who let the ball get out of hand. I don't know him. I don't know whether he's a sensitive kid that needs a pat on the back. I don't know whether he's a cocky kid that maybe had been messing around with the football during preseason, and needed a kick in the rear end. I don't know. You treat everybody differently. I mean we're not a bunch of puppets out there. They're not robots. You're talking about people with different problems, different reasons things happen. So I think that that would be up to Coach Riley to make that decision. I couldn't. I wouldn't have the slightest idea what I would do until it happened. Then when it happened, hopefully -- I always called on Mark Twain. You know, he was a riverboat captain. He was talking about you've got to do things by the seat of your pants. He says every day a captain has to learn more than anybody should ever have to learn. Then the next day he's got to learn it again in a different way. All right? That's what coaching is. Everybody is, you know, what happened last week with this group. It may be entirely different if the same thing happened with this group. So I can't answer that. Q. Did you get out of the Coastal Carolina game injury free? COACH PATERNO: Yeah, we were fortunate. End of FastScripts |
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