JoePa's 9/2 Press Conference (Penn State)

[DR STRANGELOVE]

You gave credit to Temple?s defense for making it difficult to throw the ball. Is there anything your team could have done better?

There are a lot of things we could have done better. I think we only threw three or four passes the second half. I was pleased that we were able to do that. They were a solid defensive football team. They can play well. I thought they did a good job. They didn?t turn the ball over. I think we had the blocked punt, period. We can do a lot of things better. The timing was a little bit off on a couple of passes and we didn?t catch a couple of passes. We can do better. I hope we can do better.

Are you more comfortable playing against a conventional offense than a spread offense?

I don?t know whether I am more comfortable. We are not a big football team. We can run fairly well. We may even be a little better suited to that type of offense that we faced Saturday. It depends on the execution and who is doing it. I think Tom Bradley and the defensive coaches have a very flexible scheme and have the ability to be competitive against most anybody we have played. Since the Iowa game a year ago, we?ve played really good defense. We were a little bit sluggish early in that game when they ran up a lot of points on us. Since then we have played well and they do a good job with adapting and adjusting. Outside of the fake punt pass, I don?t know whether it was the 15-yard pass or the 10-12 yards runs and that is what you want to do. Another thing we didn?t do is force a turnover. In the first place, we are going to make a lot of mistakes because they are young. There are a lot of kids in there who have never played much. Having said that, if we have to play against somebody who spreads us out all over they place, I think we have enough good athletes that we can be adequate.

Do you worry at all about Zack Mills? rhythm when he is playing wide receiver instead of quarterback?

No. He doesn?t do that much out there. It gives us another option for a couple of things. There are some things that we can do that we didn?t do Saturday. We didn?t have to do it so we stayed away from it. Both he and Michael Robinson are very, very smart football players and good athletes. They can do a lot of things. They learn quickly and have a good sense of timing, anticipation and things like that. I don?t think it bothers them at all.

With all of the inexperience on the defensive line, does that put more pressure on the linebackers to make plays?

I think so. I think the linebackers did a good job. I felt that Derek Wake played a very strong game. Deryck Toles and Gino Capone played well. We are fortunate that we have a fairly experienced secondary. The down guys up front are the guys that have to rise to the occasion and that does put more pressure on the linebackers.

Was Sean McHugh a lot more aggressive on Saturday than last year?

He had a different role last year. I wouldn?t be critical of him. He may be critical of himself. Paul Jefferson was there and they split a lot of time. Sean was probably in on almost every offensive play we had vs. Temple. We played him at single back and fullback in the I. He covers punts. I think he did a good job Saturday. I just would not be critical of his performance last year.

Why do you feel that Sean McHugh is more suited to play fullback than tight end?

He, at one time, had the record for rushing yards in high school in the state of Ohio. When we recruited him, he was a superb running back. He is a good running back. Where he goes after he gets through playing in college, that is up to somebody else to make that decision. I think he is a good fullback. He is strong and has good feet and can catch the ball. Obviously, he is a big man and can block. I think he is very, very suited to be a fullback.

Give update on Mike Gasparato?s condition and how will that affect the tailback rotation this week?

The thing with Mike Gasparato is not good. He still cannot do anything. He won?t be able to practice this week. They may have to make a decision as to whether they are going to have to do something surgically. We will probably play the game just about the way we played it last week. I am always hesitant to make predictions because games have a personality of their own and you try to adjust to how the game is being done and what the other guy is doing. We will probably give the young backs a little bit more work during the week at pass protection and some things that take a little bit more time to get good at. It takes more than just natural ability. We will probably do it about the same way. This is only Tuesday and we are just finishing up a game plan this morning.

How is Boston College going to be different from Temple as far as the problems they may give you on offense and defense?

Without taking anything away from the Temple kids because I felt they played hard, were disciplined and played a good football game, Boston College would appear to have more talent. They probably have more speed. The Temple tailback did a good job against us, but the kid from Boston College (Derrick Knight) is a very talented kid. He would be in a class with the tailback of Iowa (Fred Russell, 2002). They have two quarterbacks a little bit similar to Temple in that sense that they have one kid that is a great big kid and the other kid is probably a little better runner, but I am not sure of that. The other kid only played a couple of series against Wake Forest. There are probably a couple of kids in key spots that run a little better than Temple does. Boston College gave the game to Wake Forest last week. They had the game won and then did a couple of foolish things that turned into easy touchdowns to Wake Forest and gave Wake Forest a chance to beat them late in the game. Obviously, there are a lot of things that they want to prove. It is a Big Ten game and the whole bit. I think they just have a little bit more talent than Temple.

Tell a little bit about your recollections of Frank Spaziani when he used to play for you in the 60?s.

I recruited Frank out of high school. Rex was his mom?s name; she was one of my favorites. Spaz was a great guy. He was a high school quarterback, a big quarterback and wasn?t that good. We made him a defensive end and because he was so slow, we turned him in. He was the only guy that played perpendicular in his stance on the defensive line. He was a good tough kid and became a co-captain. We have stayed close through the years. I am very fond of Frank.

Are you pleased with the way that Levi Brown has developed in the short time that he has been on the offensive line?

He did a good job on Saturday realizing that he has not only played as an offensive lineman, it is the first time he has played in a college game. He started a little slow, but I felt the offensive line, generally, started a little bit slow but picked it up as they got a little bit more confidence in themselves and played a good second half. Levi was one of those kids. His pass protection got a little better and did some of the little finesse things like cut off blocks when plays went away from him. He finished those blocks. Sometimes he has had a tendency just to not quite understand what has to be done. I thought he got better as the game went on and, obviously, has all of the tools to be a really good offensive tackle.

Do you expect to throw the ball a little more this week? How did you evaluate the wide receiver position after the Temple game?

I really never know. I thought we would have to throw the ball 35-40 times against Temple. I didn?t think our offensive line would be able to get the kind of running game together that we were able to get. Temple was the leading team in the Big East against the rush in 2002. Their scheme is tough to run against. I thought we would have to throw the ball a lot more. This week I would think we will have to throw the ball because Boston College does a lot of things that are very similar to what Temple does in that they have a lot of people around the football. To answer the second part of it, the young ones showed they were young. A couple of plays that they ran, their timing wasn?t what it was supposed to be. I think they got into the crowd a little bit and dropped a pass or two and so forth. I think they will get better as they play. There is a chance for those kids to get to be good. They did not have a great performance. For kids who have never played much, they were all right.

After getting a look at the tape, what was your assessment of Austin Scott?s performance?

I thought he did a good job. All we asked him to do is carry the football. We have to get him to do something else. He is going to be a pretty good player.

 

[DR STRANGELOVE]

What is Tim Shaw?s status?

We may redshirt him. We put him over on defense as a linebacker because originally that is where we thought he would play. We used him at tailback last year because we needed a backup guy. He is a good athlete. Last year he didn?t play enough plays for us to really justify having played him. I really do not want to waste another year with him. He and I have talked a little bit and I said, "Let?s just play it by ear right now, but we may redshirt you."

The 1973 team is going to be honored at halftime of this week?s game. Can you talk about some of your recollections of that team, particularly John Cappelletti?

They were a very unique bunch of kids. They were the first team to win 11 or 12 games because that was the first year we were allowed to play an extra game. I was always disappointed that they never got more recognition because they were a good football team. Cappy was one of those guys who was very self-effacing. People don?t realize that when that class came in freshmen were not eligible so he played as a freshman. As a sophomore, he was a defensive back because we had Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell so he went over and played corner. He wasn?t a great corner, but he went over there. They were very close. Most of the kids were solid kids and good students. Most of them have had good careers in their post Penn State lives. They were a really good football team with a lot of good people.

How would you grade the offensive line?s performance overall in this first game?

Grade is a tough word to use. I think we did a pretty good job. As they got in there and got a little bit more comfortable, they got better and they did it against well conceived defensive schemes. We have a long way to go, but you have to take it one step at a time.

How serious is Jay Alford?s injury right now and is it possible he will play this weekend?

He won?t play this week. He will be out probably a couple of weeks. It is not a tear or anything. He has a sprain.

Do you hope to get Donnie Johnson more work?

There are a lot of kids out there that are all pretty good and nobody is really way above the pack; particularly, because none of them have had any experience. None of them have played. Donnie hasn?t been in a game and neither have the two young backs that we played. Mike Gasparato and Ricky Upton would have been the two tailbacks. We are trying to get Michael Robinson in the ball game so it is hard for me to really tell you exactly what is going to happen. I know you guys are looking for more than that, but that is all I can tell you. We may even fool around with Donnie Johnson playing another position. I don?t know yet.

It looks like Boston College has a big tight end that catches a lot of balls. Is that a concern for you?

They have three tight ends that are big. Yes, that is a concern. They do some things with tight ends that we didn?t see against Temple, which will be tough for us.

You said after the Temple game that when the two true freshmen were in, it kind of limited what you could do offensively as far as your total package. With another week of practice, are you optimistic with adding a little more to the offense?

We are not adding more to the offense. We can?t afford to do that because the offensive line has to get comfortable before we can start horsing around doing a lot of other things. We are not going to do many things differently than we have done. The only thing is, that those kids get a little bit more exposure to some things and we would feel more comfortable asking them to do some things. We are not going to add any offense. We are just going to expose them to more of what we have.

Have you guys become more predicated on what the opponent does than, maybe, before?

Since Tommy Bradley has taken over, we have done a lot more situation substitution as well as personnel substitutions. I think Derek Wake played maybe 40-some plays. I don?t know exactly how many plays he played, but there were times that we had some other people we thought could, maybe, do a little bit more in the way of pass defense. Stick a kid in there who is a corner or a safety when they are spread out all over the place. Sometimes, we would keep Wake in there because there are some other things he can do. They have a good scheme, are well organized and are able to make those substitutions. Sometimes you always worry about being too late making them, but I think we were pretty good on Saturday. We are trying to make better use of what personnel we have and try to anticipate more things in different situations.

Did Deryck Toles play more than 30 plays?

I think he got in about 36 plays. I thought he did well. He wants to play more.

What do you remember about Horace Dodd when he played at Penn State?

I think Horace Dodd is a good football player. I was sorry to see him go. I didn?t want to lose him. He was a guy that we had kind of projected as being a tailback for us because of his class in school. He would have been a redshirt here as well as where he is there. I think he is a good football player. He is a good-sized kid. He must be 220-225 pounds. I don?t know what he is now, but he was close to that when he was here. He has good speed and is a really good person. He is a good student and the whole bit. I hated to lose him.

What goes into the decision as to whether to try to have David Kimball kick it out of the end zone?

You don?t think we were that smart that we were kicking that high do you? Every time he came out I said, "Get it out of the end zone." That kid was pretty good running back those kickoffs. Sometimes you just don?t hit the ball right. The last one he hit he hit is just right and, of course, he knocked it right through. We did not deliberately try to put the ball high on the two and three yard line.

You mentioned you are always concerned about a team getting its legs back and recovering in time. Do you feel that your guys recovered?

I think a couple of kids looked a little tired to me, particularly, the younger kids in the skilled spots. Maybe that is why we weren?t a little bit sharper throwing the football. We may have been one step slower than we had been. I think we were a little tired.

Tony Johnson dropped a couple of passes. He has done that in the past off and on. What do you need to do to get him more consistent?

He has to concentrate. He has good hands. He dropped the one where Zack rolled out. He is in a hurry to catch it and run with it and doesn?t look it in and doesn?t concentrate. I think he is trying too hard, maybe. He feels he has to carry the load. I think he will be all right.

Are you happy with what you were able to get out of Michael Robinson on Saturday and are you planning on expanding what he is doing with the offense right now?

We are not going to expand. We have some things that we didn?t do with him in there that we can do. I thought that worked out all right. We got the big run out of him, which really was a big, big play. There were some other things that we could have done, but we didn?t do them because we just didn?t think we needed to do them. The one thing you have to understand is that we have to be very careful. I have a saying, "You are only as fast as the slowest guy on the team. You are only as smart as the dumbest guy on your team. You can only handle as much as the guy who handles the least." You can?t jump ahead when you have linemen that aren?t sure of some things. You try to stay put. That doesn?t mean that you use everything in every game. We have some things we didn?t do Saturday that we can do if it is appropriate. We have to stay with what we have practiced until we all get comfortable. As soon as we get everybody comfortable, we can move up a notch and do something else. There are a lot of young kids. You have a young line. Outside of Tony Johnson, there isn?t anybody that has really played much at wideout. If we start playing those two young kids at tailback, what have they done? They are one game away from being high school backs. It is one of those things. I was really pleased, in a sense, that we didn?t have an offsides penalty. We hung onto the ball, except for the one interception. Overall, in the first game that was a pretty poised performance. It wasn?t a dominating performance. I am not trying to say that, but it was a poised performance. Nobody has mentioned the kicking. I thought the long snapper (Nick Paise) and the punter (Jeremy Kapines) did a good job for the first time being in a game. Those things are really encouraging. You have to be careful that we don?t start getting carried away with that because it is only one game. After we do it a couple of games, then we can start saying, "Hey, we are ready for some other things."

 

[DR STRANGELOVE]

Was it a surprise to have had only one penalty with the inexperience?

When I went home, I was trying to think about how many penalties we had. All of a sudden I said, "I think we only got the one." That shows some kids who had some poise for being as young as they are and disciplined. From that you have a chance to get better.

Do you expect Anwar Phillips to dress on Saturday?

He is practicing. We will see how it goes. He is a member of the team right now. He has not been in any practices and yesterday was the first he has done anything and Monday is not a big day of practice. I?ll have to take a look at him and see how he is doing.

When you get ready for Boston College, do you look back at all of those near misses you had with Boston College when Coach Bicknell was there? It was a pretty good rivalry for about 10 years. Are you glad to see Boston College back on the schedule?

I think we have had a good series going back to Doug Flutie and even beyond that. I have ties with Boston College. I went to a prep school and almost went to Boston College. I had a lot of pressure from the Jesuits in high school to go there. Then when I was at Brown University, we used to scrimmage them. Artie Donovan, who played for the Colts for years, I played against in high school. Jaz Diminick was at Boston College and was the Mt. Carmel coach when I was at Brown. I have a lot of respect for them and we have had good, tough football games with them. I expect we will have another one on Saturday.

Would you still like to scrimmage teams?

I would like to do that. I don?t know if I would want to do as much as the pros. They seem to be killing themselves with the tough pre-season game. We used to go over to Bucknell and scrimmage in the spring. We went over to Bucknell when Rip Engle was the head coach. We had Rosey Grier. Rip and the coach at Bucknell had been teammates at Western Maryland. We went over there and we were ahead. Harry says to Rip, "Let?s go one more quarter." Now Bucknell is ahead. So Rip says, "Let?s go one more quarter." Rosey Grier gets off the bench and stands up on top of the bench. Rip says, "What are you doing?" He says, "I am stretching for the seventh quarter." We had a lot of fun. George Young, who recently died, was big in the NFL as a general manager. He was on that Bucknell team. We used to go to Cornell and scrimmage Cornell. I thought that was good because you would get a chance to know some of the kids in the springtime. Those days are gone, I think.

What did you think of Dethrell Garcia?s performance? Has he had a good preseason practice to get on the field like he did Saturday?

He has played so little football the last couple of years because of his injuries and things like that. He has gotten better and better and better. He doesn?t play as well in space as well as you would like an outside linebacker to play. He is probably better inside, but we are playing him outside because there is little depth over there where Deryck Toles is. Eventually, he is going to be a good player. He just needs to get more comfortable. I keep using the words more comfortable, because I try to tell people that being a linebacker and playing football is like driving a car. The first time you drive the car it?s not until after you drive it awhile that you can talk and get your cell phone out because you see things. It all happens and there is a flow to it. When you are new at something there is a tendency that everything jumps at you, so you are a little bit slow doing things. That is about where Garcia is right now. Just a little bit slow doing some things. He has enough ability.

Without Jay Alford, are you a little bit concerned about your tackle depth going into the Boston College game?

Yes, I am concerned because the people who are going to play haven?t played. I thought the young kid from Detroit (Ed Johnson) did a good job. That was the first time he had been in a ball game. Eddie Johnson did a good job. We made some mistakes. A couple of those runs that Temple broke off we went around a block here or did something there. We have a week to get some of the other kids a little bit better. I am worried about our depth. I am worried about our depth in most places. Not because there are not quality people there, but because there is so little experience. You hate to start each week with a different group that hasn?t had experience.