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ROSE BOWL GAME: PENN STATE v USCJanuary 1, 2009Daryll ClarkJoe PaternoLydell SargeantPASADENA, CALIFORNIA GINA CHAPPIN: We're going to open it up for questions for Coach Paterno. First question on the right here. Q. Coach, can you just talk about penalties in the first half? You had a couple penalties right before the full bell, and there was a 15-yard face mask right before the touchdown. COACH JOE PATERNO: Playing a team as good as Southern Cal is -- and they played very well and they're obviously an outstanding football team -- we can't make those kinds of mistakes. We knew that coming in the ballgame, and we then decided we don't turn the ball over, protect the ball, make sure we cover kicks, and whatever do you, let's not make any stupid penalties. The first half we just seemed to just do things that we have not done all year, but -- I don't want to take anything away from Southern Cal because they played a heck of a football and the quarterback played a great game and they certainly deserve to win it, but, you know, I'm a little disappointed we weren't a little bit more competitive, and I think a lot of that is because we didn't -- we made so many mistakes in the first half. Q. Joe, can you assess the play of USC's receivers and the play of your secondary? COACH JOE PATERNO: Well, I think obviously Southern -- the Southern Cal receivers are very good and played well. You can't give them more credit than the quarterback did. The quarterback made a couple of super throws and the protection of their offensive line. I thought our secondary was a little bit tentative, and I think the fact that they got hurt early on a couple of things, they were a little bit concerned, and then we fell asleep on the touchdown in the second half and just absolutely fell asleep on it. So, I don't think we played particularly well in the secondary, but I think there again, you got to give the other guys some credit. I thought the quarterback, the Southern Cal quarterback, played a great football game. Q. Joe, what happened with Evan Royster? Was it a knee in? COACH JOE PATERNO: I'm not sure yet. They would not let him get back in there. I haven't had a chance to talk to the trainers and doctors yet. I know he got banged up and couldn't play. Q. Joe, what was feeling on the field goal kick with seven minutes to go and not going for the touchdown there? COACH JOE PATERNO: Yeah. If I had to do it over again, I probably should have gone for the score, but I thought -- wasn't a 4th and 1. We would have to make a really good play. So I figure let's get on the board, let's get within 2 if we can and see what happens. I don't know. Maybe if I had to do it over again I might have gone for it. I don't know. I don't think that had anything to do with the outcome of the game. Q. Joe, in that first half you had 7 penalties. You had a fumble. You had an illegal shift that cost you a 45-yard gain. You hadn't played in 41 days. Do you think the speed of the game and the layoff hurt you? Those are very uncharacteristic for a team that was the least penalized in the Big Ten. COACH JOE PATERNO: That was the biggest disappointment as far as I was concerned in the football game. We knew we had to play a solid football game, couldn't have a lot of penalties. As you say, we had some very significant penalties the first half and the turnover. You know, blame it on the fact that we had a longer layoff than Southern Cal, I think to do that I think is not fair to Southern Cal. We had enough time to get ready. We just didn't play the game we've been playing all year. We've been, as you mentioned, not had a lot of penalties. I didn't realize we were the least penalized team in the Big Ten, but we had kids that have been very, very aware of penalties and have played very -- with poise and so forth today. We made some -- first half some of the things, just people just kind of lost their heads about a couple of things. But I think I can't blame it on the layoff. That's not fair to Southern Cal. Q. Coach, I want to hear more about the layoff, though, because I really think that a layoff, it's a challenge in terms of, you know, it's like an off-season. You talk more about the fact that maybe if we had a championship game in the Big Ten or another game that it might have an effect on today's game? COACH JOE PATERNO: Yeah. I think we ought to be allowed to play longer in the Big Ten, but then say that this game tonight was based, we lost the game because we had a longer layoff than Southern Cal -- there's a lot of things in coming out here. The traveling, practice, 45 minutes on the bus to get there, 45 minutes to come back. There's a lot of little things that go on in there that I think in all fairness without, again, being a crybaby, I think in all fairness, when you play Southern Cal, they're home and they practice in -- where they normally practice, and it's a lot easier for them to get ready, but we should not have made -- if we're playing our game and we played it the way we've been playing all year, we wouldn't have made the mistakes. I don't think the layoff had anything to do with that, but I do think -- to get back to the point of your question, I think the Big Ten would do itself a favor if we could play a week or two after the season that we have right now. Q. Joe, you've been able to build off -- you've been able to build off bowl game Wednesday the previous three seasons. Do you have a specific philosophy or how you handle losses in the off-season? COACH JOE PATERNO: Well, I think you get back to work, you know. I told the team, I said, you know, Hold your heads up. You've had a great year. You know, we didn't play our football game the first half, but we came back and we hung in there, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. I told them, We'll go back home, the guys are coming back. We've got to go back to work and start off again, and we'll do that. We don't go back to school until the 12th of January. They'll have a little time to get away and relax, and when they come back, we'll have a meeting and figure out what we want to do this winter. Q. Coach, you gave their quarterback credit, and you also gave their receivers credit -- over here to your left, Joe. How much of it is the scheme of your secondary? Your defensive backs need to get more closer on wide receivers and just challenge them a little more in? COACH JOE PATERNO: It's -- you know, it all ties together, how effective is your rushing? You can't get -- force the quarterback into making some throws a little quicker than maybe we made today. I didn't think our pass rush was particularly strong, either. So, you know -- in all fairness I thought Southern Cal's offensive line blocked well. I thought the quarterback got rid of the ball very quickly. One throw he made where he through that threw that one away from the press box on the out, we had them. We banked him around. He let that ball go before the guy was on the break, and it was right on the money. He made some real good plays. Again, I hate -- as a coach, you got to admire kids who do things like that under pressure. But I don't think our secondary scheme is at fault. I think it's a combination of pressure by the up-front people, and obviously the quarterback being a little bit erratic once in a while with overthrows, you have an opportunity to get an interception. He just had a heck of a football game. Q. Coach, you guys still scored on the drive where you had the big penalty to make it 7-7. Was there a point where you thought it started to get away from you after that? COACH JOE PATERNO: What was the score at halftime, 31-7? I thought it had gotten away from us. You know, you could see we were struggling. We weren't playing well. We were grasping at certain things. Yeah, I felt it was kind of slipping away from us when they started to get into rhythm and we couldn't quite get them out of sync. But, you know, until they got to 31, the last touchdown I thought we had a shot at it. When they had 24 points, I still felt we had a shot at it. Q. This is for Lydell. Lydell, can you assess USC's receivers, their passing game. Was it better, were they better than you expected? LYDELL SARGEANT: No. I just think that them and the receiver corp and Mark were there on time the whole night. I think a lot of the routes that he was throwing, even before they were breaking on their routes and they had the good connection. And like Coach said, at one point they were feeling, you know, feeling it pretty good and, you know, it's nothing that we haven't seen before this year. It's just that they're mistake free, and Mark did a good job throwing to the receivers that were open and really reading our coverages. GINA CHAPPIN: Any other questions? On the right. Q. Lydell, what about their size, though? Did that seem to be a big problem for you guys? You guys are 5-foot-10. LYDELL SARGEANT: No. No. Q. Turner is 6-foot-5? LYDELL SARGEANT: They tried to throw a fade on me earlier in the game. It didn't work. They didn't throw too many jump ball passes that we didn't make any plays on. So the size difference wasn't the reason why they were completing passes. I think that 4-foot-10 guy could catch some of the passes that Mark was throwing. So, like I said, they tried to go up top a couple times and weren't successful, and so the size difference really didn't matter in this game. Q. Daryll, the speed of USC, the speed of USC's defense, did that surprise you, or were you ready for that type of speed? DARYLL CLARK: We were ready for everything they threw at us. Really wasn't surprised about the speed. We knew how fast they were. I think Coach said it best in the locker room, that we just got going a little too late, and, you know, we were doing some things that we haven't been doing all season. We didn't convert on any third downs, and I think that really hurt us, and also we did a lot of things like penalties as well, that hurt us. Once we started to click and got going a little bit, it was just a little too late. Q. Coach, can you just talk about the relationship that you have with your seniors as they depart in their final game for Penn State and what they've meant to you? COACH JOE PATERNO: Well, you know, they're a very special group, because when most of them got started at Penn State, we were struggling and they had to take a chance on whether the program was going to move up with them. When Daryll decided to come to Penn State and Lydell came, we were strung a little bit. Derrick was a freshman. We almost went all the way. We lost on the last play of the ballgame at Michigan. We had a good Orange Bowl win in a BCS game, and these kids played in three Bowls and run and played in another BCS game. You know, I feel bad that, you know, ending up like a loss, and I feel bad maybe we could have done a better job to help them, but I think they're a very special group of kids. Hung in there together, and they believed in the coaches. And I think our assistant coaches have done a great job with them, and I think they appreciate the effort that they have made to help us have a good football team. I think we've had a good relationship. I'm going to miss them. I know that. Q. Lydell, had you seen that Mark Sanchez on film, or did he bring out his best game tonight? LYDELL SARGEANT: I would say he had his best game tonight. I think that he didn't make any mistakes, he didn't make any costly throws, and he was on time with his receivers the majority of the night, and when the deep passes weren't open, he was throwing takedowns, and when the takedowns were covered, he was throwing deep passes. It's the best I've seen Mark play out of watching all games that he's played this season, and he did a good job and, you know, I wish him the best on the rest of his career. GINA CHAPPIN: Two more questions. Q. Coach, I wanted to ask you about Mark Sanchez as well. Your thoughts on him and how were you preparing for him and surprised what he was able to accomplish this game and also the PAC-10 are now 5-0 in the Bowl games. Are you a little bit surprised that they were as good as they turned out to be, the PAC-10? COACH JOE PATERNO: Well, I can't speak for the rest of the PAC-10. I can only speak for the team we played today, and I think that -- I tried to say all week that we were playing against what I thought was as good a football team as there was in the country, regardless of whether they were playing for the National Championship, and I felt that way. I thought we were playing against the best, and I thought we had to play our best game in order to be competitive with them, and we didn't play our best game the first half. So, I don't know exactly when you say "prepared for the quarterback," yeah, we tried to get a rush on him. We really worked awfully hard on trying to take away some of the routes that they had made -- had a lot of success with, and overall we did a pretty good job in that part of it. We didn't do a good enough job rushing him, as I said earlier, for these guys to sit back there with kids as talented as the wideouts are. He had been a good quarterback. He's won some games for them where they didn't play that well, and they had some problems, and today he played really well, and I thought their offensive line played as well as I've seen them play, particularly in the pass protection area. GINA CHAPPIN: Final question back right. Q. Coach, following tonight's game Pete Carroll said with all due respect to Florida and Oklahoma, he doesn't think anybody can beat the Trojans this season. I just want to get your thoughts. COACH JOE PATERNO: I said, I thought they were as good a football team as they were in the country this year. I went in the game feeling that way. Whether they could beat Oklahoma or not, I don't know whether they could or they couldn't. I don't know. It would take a heck of a football team to beat Southern Cal today the way they played today. Even if we had not made so many mistakes, we would have been in a tough battle with them, and I think we're a pretty good football team. It might not have showed that today, but these guys were good competitors and played hard all year. I don't know. I think they certainly -- I think Southern Cal has every right to say they're as good as anybody else in the country. I mean, I don't think they have to say we're the third best or the second, but there again, you get back into the playoff business. GINA CHAPPIN: Alright. Thank you, Coach. Thanks, guys. End of FastScripts |
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