TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: PENN STATE v TEXAS

January 1, 1997

Curtis Enis

Joe Paterno

Wally Richardson

Mark Tate

COACH PATERNO: Cleary and Young and Daniels did a great job, the Texas kids crossed their lanes on them, and those two kids did a good job of picking it up. That opens it up for Kenny.

COACH PATERNO: Dropping all over the place the first half. Weren't that bad the first half. We had some people open. Wally had Jurevicius wide open, which would have made it 14-3 pretty quick, then Campbell dropped that pass. Third down and they came right down the field and then they scored. We were just jumping around, couldn't quite figure out exactly what we wanted to do. They were a little bit quicker to the outside than we thought they would be. Started out the ball game thinking we could bounce a couple things outside, didn't get it. We made up our mind in the second half we would rather run right at them, see if that would work. Came out second half and played not -- pretty good -- not pretty good, played a very good second half.

COACH PATERNO: Well, I think obviously we did a good job. Whether we did as well as anybody could ever do or anything like that, that's a large statement. I thought we played a very, very solid defense. Our kids lined up properly, we tried like the dickens not to give up the big play, we talked about no big plays, no big plays. I think we did a good job with that. We talked about tackling their people when they caught the ball. I thought our people did a tremendous job tackling today. They tackled not only were they effective, but they really hit hard. I think we played well, we did what we wanted to do. Whether it's the best anybody could defense them or not, I don't know.

COACH PATERNO: Well, I don't know. I don't know the scores yet. Somebody told me Ohio State pulled it out. I don't know. You guys, you know, I think we're in the top five football teams. Whether we get that high or not, I don't know. I think we're certainly in the top ten.

COACH PATERNO: We were playing well, Texas had played well. We were only down by five points. I figured, hey, maybe we'll go out in the second half and play better. I figured we could play better, at least score a couple times. It worked out. Obviously the kickoff gave us a tremendous impetus.

COACH PATERNO: I feel the best about this football team is when they were down, they stuck together, they stuck with Wally. Wally stuck with them.

COACH PATERNO: Yes.

COACH PATERNO: It was called by somebody, but thank God it worked (laughter). I could just see you guys if he got trapped in the end zone for safety. They'd want to know who called.

COACH PATERNO: Well, we figured -- we felt we were just jumping all over the place the first half. We had put in some things, hadn't gotten around to doing it the first half. We went back to what we thought we could do and it worked. If it hadn't worked, we were ready to throw the football more.

COACH PATERNO: Aaron Harris has been hurt. In fact, we weren't sure till the warm up whether Aaron could play. He hadn't practiced in almost, oh, ten days, he's had a bad ankle.

COACH PATERNO: Great. Played some pretty good football games. What are we, five in a row now? I feel good about it. I felt good about today was we played a lot of younger kids in key situations and they played well. Enis played well, Morris played well, we stuck in Courtney Brown, Gatten, Macklin played a great deal, played well. All those kids were doing a good job. Kenny, Watson. Those young guys playing that well made me feel good.

COACH PATERNO: They did a great job. They're a great group of young people. Not great athletes, probably not a pro in that line, but they can go out and get the job done.

COACH PATERNO: Gee, you know --

COACH PATERNO: That's tough. We've been very fortunate. We've met a lot of great teams, had great streaks, things that have been really good. This certainly would rank, played there at the top.

COACH PATERNO: Well, I think with James Brown, first half I thought he was really good. Second half, when we got a little bit rush on him and we changed up a little bit more with the zones, I think some of his kids got a little tired, some of his receivers didn't look like they were quite as quick the second half or at least we were doing a little better job with them the second half. Really he had a couple times he couldn't find anybody open. But he made a couple spectacular plays. He's really an excellent football player, got a marvelous arm, quick delivery, he's strong. He's really good. Thought their kids caught the ball really well the first half.

COACH PATERNO: They did well. I was glad to see some of the younger players play a good game, which I know, another year of football. We put in Macklin. I think they all played well. Everybody played well but Curtis Enis, (laughter). That's enough. You can have him.

CURTIS ENIS: They've been doing a great job all year, especially the last four games of the season. Once I got my shoulder injury back in order, I was a hundred percent. You know, they basically said our running game is really what we need in order for us to get to this point in the season. Our line did an outstanding job. Sad to see that some are gone, those guys are leaving, and Tielsch. We have some younger guys that are able to do the job. Hopefully next year will be even better than it was next year this year.

CURTIS ENIS: That's just how Penn State football is, close family knit. We go out and have fun, it's everybody together, and when we play, it's everybody together. I can't say enough for the seniors that graduated. I'm just tickled pink that they were able to come out and play as well as they did. I mean, it's just an honor for me to be considered in the same breath as some of the seniors like Herring, Noble, and Tate.

CURTIS ENIS: As everybody knows, we feed off our defense. When they came out and played hard, wasn't able to put together drives and stuff like that, I kind of took it personal and said that we had to start moving the ball. I had some juicy footing around the second half, wasn't reading it. We hadn't played in so long. Once I got the feel of the defense, what Texas was going to do with the running game, we started to open things up, able to move the ball as well as we did.

CURTIS ENIS: I can't say enough how big that kickoff return was for us. They came out. You know, what's funny about it was, he's going to run this back and we're going to go for two. I was like, Okay. Sure enough, there went Kenny Watson right down the sideline running. That really just gave our offense a spark. We had a little let down when we got that fake punt thing. We stayed together as a team. We overcame that adversity. Everything worked out for us.

CURTIS ENIS: I think we should be ranked high enough to be respected. This game gave us a lot of lift. I think it would be disrespectful for me and Penn State University not for us to be ranked in the top five.

MARK TATE: As a defense, we knew it was going to take a total effort for us to be able to win. They made some mistakes early, but we knew they would come right back because of the talent they have at so many different positions. At halftime we just said it was going to take a strong defensive effort for us to win this football game.

MARK TATE: We were just in a two lead zone coverage. He thought I was dropping deep, so I just read his eyes. When he went to break it and throw it to the guy in flat, I happened to get in front of him.

MARK TATE: I didn't think I touched him. All I did was hit the ball. But we got it back when they got interference on us, so it all worked out.

WALLY RICHARDSON: I just think we had a lot of guys that wanted to win the football game. We came out there and played like we were capable in the second half, played a lot better, had a couple big plays to turn things around for us. I think Texas got a little tired.

WALLY RICHARDSON: We just didn't make the most of our opportunities. We had plenty of chances to get some points on the board. We really didn't do that. I knew we had to hang in there and turn things around. We came back out in the second half and played a lot better than we did the first half.

WALLY RICHARDSON: It gave us the momentum coming out of the locker room at halftime. It made the offensive job a lot easier getting a touchdown. When we ran the reverse, that was a big play, broke their backs. We ended up getting an 84-yard gain so that was a big play for us.

WALLY RICHARDSON: It means a lot to me to play the way we did. We just executed what we were capable of, winning 11 games. Like I said before, nobody expected us to be here or be as successful as we were, but I think we proved a lot of people wrong this year.