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PENN STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 29, 2013Jesse Della ValleQ. Jesse, John Butler has taken some criticism, especially after the Ohio State game. Coach O'Brien was in here adamantly defending him earlier. I'm just curious, what do you think of the job Coach Butler has done, and how has he been since the Ohio State game on Saturday? JESSE DELLA VALLE: Coach Butler is a guy that is always working with us as players to develop us, every single week, every single day. He's extremely passionate about what he does in his profession. I think I speak for every player on our team when I say that everyone has a lot of respect for him and really respects the work that he does for our team. Q. Jesse, is there anything you can take away or learn from Saturday night, or is that the kind of game you just file away and try to forget about? JESSE DELLA VALLE: I think every game you can obviously learn something from. From that game, we want to just watch the film, learn from our mistakes, and kind of move on. We have a lot more to play for this season. So we're going to move on and focus on what we need to do. Q. Jesse, can you just talk a little bit about the‑‑ I believe extended playing time that you received on Saturday, getting your first start, and what that meant for you and just some personal improvements that you think that you can still make in the secondary? JESSE DELLA VALLE: Yeah, like you said, I was able to be on the field a little bit more in the secondary. So that was something I was excited about, just to be able to go out there with my teammates, run around, and make some plays. I've been preparing every week, just like the rest of our guys on the defense and on our team. So I felt prepared. Yeah, it was something big for me, but I know personally of a lot of improvements to make in my own game. So that's what I'm going to focus on from here on out. Q. Jesse, Jordan Lucas said after the game that one of the issues with the defense was a little bit of miscommunication. How do you guys communicate on the field? Is it verbal? Is it hand signals? What do you guys do? JESSE DELLA VALLE: It's a little bit of both. You're trying to make sure everyone is on the same page and playing the right defense, things like that. So it's kind of a little bit of everything. Q. Jesse, do you like playing in the secondary more, or do you like playing on special teams more and why? JESSE DELLA VALLE: I like playing football, period, anywhere I can get out there. That's what I want to do. I came to Penn State to be a great student‑athlete and play football here. So that's what I came to do any way I can do it, I'm happy with that. Q. Jesse, what can you tell us about the Illini. What do you see from them? JESSE DELLA VALLE: I see a good team. I haven't really had too much time to watch too much film on them yet. I know they've got some talent on offense, and we're definitely going to have to be prepared for some of the weapons they have on offense. Q. Jesse, just following up on that a little bit, they've got two pretty good wideouts. What have you seen on tape from those guys? JESSE DELLA VALLE: Like I said, haven't watched too much so early in the week. But we know from last year, like you said, they do have talent, and they're guys that we're really going to have to focus on and make sure we can match up with and just do a good job on Saturday. Q. Jesse, can you just evaluate your play on special teams this year, how you think everything's gone in the return games and any improvements you think can be made? JESSE DELLA VALLE: I'm just out there trying to do my best, man. I think I've been doing fairly well, but like I said before, there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm always trying to improve my personal game. I know that's the focus of our entire team is just to keep improving. So that's what I'm going to keep doing is improving. Q. We saw Amos more at cornerback Saturday than we have most of this year, and Bill said we can kind of expect to see that. What does he bring to this team as a corner? I mean, obviously, we saw what he did last year, but specifically, what do you think he can do? JESSE DELLA VALLE: Adrian's a great athlete. You can definitely see that, no matter what position he's playing really. He's a great contributor to our team no matter what he's playing. I think he brings kind of that lockdown corner aspect to our defense. So he's a really good player. Q. Jesse, I know some high school teams have pretty good film study regimens, that kind of thing. What was yours like, and how would you compare and contrast it to what you do here? Was there a learning curve there to kind of learn how to prepare and watch film? JESSE DELLA VALLE: So what was it like for me in high school? Q. Yeah. JESSE DELLA VALLE: Just a lot of the same. I played AAAA, so it was a pretty big deal. A lot of film study, obviously, but college is a whole other thing. It's a whole different thing when you're actually studying the game, studying your opponents a lot more. I'd say film study is the main basis of it. So it was similar, but just a lot more for college. Q. Did you guys have somebody who that was his or her job to just film practices and games and cut them up? JESSE DELLA VALLE: Yeah, yeah, we would have some people who would do that. So yeah. Q. After a game where the defense gets roughed up the way you guys did, is it just kind of that‑‑ what's the mentality like heading into this week? You guys just anxious to get back out there? JESSE DELLA VALLE: Yeah, just, like you said, anxious to get back to work, and just prove that we can move on from here, and we can improve. It's always a focal point of ours to keep getting better and keep improving every week, no matter what happened that last week. So that's what we're going to do. Q. Coach O'Brien said he started you on Saturday because you've had an exceptional week in practice. What's it like to know that really any player, including yourself, any given week, if they have a good week in practice, can go out there and get a start, get a lot of playing time? JESSE DELLA VALLE: It's encouraging, but at the same time, you know that that's happening like when you're up there too. So it brings out competition. It brings out the best in everyone, I feel like. So practice is something we really see as being really important. I think that's a good thing for our team to have. Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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