Sept. 29, 2009
Opening Statement:
"First of all let me just start by saying that obviously we've played two games that no one is happy about. Our job is to get this thing corrected and that's what we're going to do. Obviously we have another great test coming in here this weekend and that'll be a great atmosphere, a great situation. Like I've told the coaches and players, we've worked too hard to get to this point to go backward now. Do we have some things we have to get straightened out? Absolutely. It's our job as a coaching staff to get it fixed. It's their job as the players to do the things that they're coached to do. As I told them again last night, I haven't lost faith in these guys. I haven't lost confidence in these guys. We just have to keep doing the things more consistently that we're able to do.
"As a coaching staff we have to do a better job and go from there. As I said, this will be another great test this week and we'll know once again if any improvements have been made and it will be made. There will be improvements made. I think we've gotten better from the first game.
"On the injury outlook, everybody's healthier. Martez's (Wilson) surgery was a success. He should get out of the hospital today. Everything looks good there so obviously he'll be getting his rehab within the next couple weeks and it should be a speedy recovery. Now it's on to the business of getting ready to play a good Penn State football team this week."
On Juice Williams handling adversity:
"I've talked a lot about it to him. It's hard. It's hard for anybody to handle adversity like that. I've told him many times - he's been there as a freshman and he's been through it and he'll come out of it. He understands that he has to perform better. We have to put him in situations where he can perform better. He has to play, it's part of the position ... I don't know that you ever take it better. I really believe that he's matured in a lot of ways. Like I told him, you come through the fire and you'll be better and stronger for it."
On Juice Williams losing confidence:
"I hope not. I don't think so. I think, once again, you get to play this position (of quarterback) and you have to be the type of person where you can put it behind you and go. He's not the only quarterback out there in this country that's struggling a little bit right now. He understands that."
On Juice Williams being more demanding of the other players:
"He is, he's going to be a little bit more demanding. I think we as a coaching staff have to be more demanding. We can't continually ask him to live outside his comfort zone. I went through the first two series on both sides of the football. If it was just one thing you can fix it, if it's a guy here, a thing here, a thing there. That's what we have to do is get the consistency. That's all of us. That's the coaches. It starts with me and the players as well."
On Juice's mindset changing after the first interception against Ohio State:
"No, I don't think so. But once again, and I'm not throwing anybody under the bus, but every time a ball is thrown, if it doesn't look like it's a perfect pass it's not necessarily the quarterback's fault. I think that's sometimes hard to remember."
On Penn State having three big wins early in the season:
"Obviously they're a good football team. They have their quarterback back, the two offensive linemen are back, the running back is back, receivers that maybe didn't start last year but they played against us last year are back, the tight end is back. Defensively they have four starters back, two guys who are tied for All-American. If you can go back and look at the things you've seen in the past four or five years, those are the things you're going to continue to see. They do a great job of coaching obviously and it'll be a battle."
On Jason Ford:
"I don't think he's hit the wall but he obviously has to catch the football. He knows that and no one feels any worse about it than he does. Those are some things where we had four drops and we can't have drops. You can blame it on the weather all you want but you have to catch the football. He knows that. He'll respond."
On the running backs:
"Jason (Ford) didn't play quite as well as we need him to play but Mikel (LesShoure) had a good game and I think Daniel (Dufrene) had a good game. Obviously we can put the football on the ground."
On the plan for using Justin Green against Ohio State:
"Yea there were some things that changed in the last second. In fact, he probably would have been in a lot earlier than he got in. But Justin is going to be fine. It's a lot different, as he's finding out and all the freshmen do. He's a freshman and it's a whole different ball game. But he's going to be a good football player. He'll get better and better each week."
On the team's transition to Mike Schultz:
"I've thought about this many nights now: What would you do differently or would you do anything differently. I thought it was important as we started this thing to keep it the same as much as we possibly could. Maybe we should have been a little tougher on them and not take it for granted that we had a chance to be pretty good. I'll go back to what I said a few minutes ago. We're going to be okay. We have to get it done and we have to get it done now. We can't wait. I think our players understand the sense of urgency, our coaches understand the sense of urgency and I understand the sense of urgency."
On balancing the sense of urgency:
"You can't panic. If you panic you're done. If you worry, it's a concern. The one good thing is that we have old enough players. We have some guys with experience that understand that's part of it. If we were all young like we were four years ago, then it's a little bit more of a concern. But we have guys who have been through the fire. I sit back and I look at them, I watch them. I want to see how they're reacting as well. To a man, they are hurt and they are frustrated with themselves, frustrated about the way things are going. Like I told them last night, we're the only guys that can change. No use looking outside, let's get the things changed and lets do it now."
On penalties:
"Once again, my complaint is foolish penalties. You're going to have penalties and penalties are a part of the game. It frustrates you when you have foolish penalties and that's the thing we can't have. We can't have a situation of one guy running on the field and one guy not coming off the field. We can't have a motion. I think holding sometimes is in the eyes of the beholder. You can't have holding, but still on the same token, I think you're going to have them occasionally. The foolish penalties like the motion and things like that, we can't have. Line it up wrong, can't have it."
On the Big Ten taking penalties more seriously:
"I've talked about it since day one. Right after the first game when Donsay (Hardeman) got called, I said, 'Donsay I'm not going to tell you whether it is or it isn't. If it's close, it's something that's not just mandated by the Big Ten, it's mandated by the NCAA, and rightfully so.' You want to protect the players. It's different than back in the day. You have guys that are a lot bigger, a lot stronger, a lot faster, hitting with more force. A lot more chance of serious injury and that's the thing they're trying to cut out."
On Supo Sanni's penalty against Ohio State:
"He's holding on for dear life. Somewhere along the line you have to understand you're out of bounds and let go. That was a penalty because they called it a penalty. He was a yard inside when he wrapped up on him and he's a guy that we stressed to all week long that you have to wrap up, you have to hold on and you have to go down with him. That's all he heard all week. I saw it on the replay. I looked at it many times and I didn't see any pushing or shoving."
On what happened after the penalty:
"I think they understand that they can't do that stuff. You can't become frustrated and have things like that happen."
On who has stepped up into Martez Wilson's role:
"Ian Thomas is probably the guy that's stood up the most. Donsay (Hardeman), it's his personality, he's a vocal guy. He's struggling a little bit. Doug Pilcher is the guy that's just a steady force. He doesn't talk a lot but he's just a steady force and him and Garrett Edwards have been the two guys that have led through the way they play. Ian has done a nice job, he's just an emotional guy and he plays emotionally."
On Evan Frierson playing well enough to increase his playing time:
"I think so. I was very pleased with the way Evan played for his first game. I told him before the game, you won't remember the first series, the first few plays. That's just the way it is with the excitement and so forth. thought he played well. Once again, you can't judge by the number, I think he had 27 plays maybe, a pretty fair amount of plays. You can't judge how he's playing by the personnel that you have in there. In other words, if you have your base personnel or your nickel personnel or your dime personnel or your quarter personnel, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how he's playing. It's what you're trying to match up defensive-wise."
On the decision to play Walter Aikens:
"I look down the road and I see Walt getting better and better and better. We've said a lot of times that just because a guy's not ready to play in the first game or even the second game it doesn't mean that he's not going to be able to. If a guy can help you, I think he can play."
On where Juice Williams' confidence is at:
"I'm not going to sit here and say his mental state is the way you'd want it. There's no one who cares more about being successful and cares more for this university than Juice. He understands it's his job as a quarterback. He understands also that when things are good he gets too much credit and when things are not going the way you want them to he probably gets too much blame. That's part of the position, but Juice is a fighter. He's been there and I'm very impressed with the way he talked to his football team last night and the way he practiced. He'll come out and prove that he can be the kind of quarterback that we all want him to be."
On the transition to the new offensive coordinator:
"Obviously that's the thing that's different so that's the thing everyone is going to point to. I don't believe it at all for whatever reason. I don't think that's the case. Because of what we're doing, we have to continue to evaluate, we have to continue to move and fix and get it done. Once again, I'm not pushing the panic button but as I said earlier, there's a sense of urgency to get it fixed. We have to coach better, they have to play better. We have talent and we all have to get playing to the level that we're capable of."
On the pressure Iowa put on Penn State's quarterback Daryll Clark:
"Their front is pretty good and they did a great job defensively. That was a heck of a defensive battle. Once again, Penn State will be a better football team this week than they were last week. That's their first big test and it was a heck of a ball game. Obviously there are some things we'd like to be able to do to maybe copy some of the things that they've done."
On Clay Nurse:
"Clay probably played his best game. I'm really proud of him. Obviously you can't have facemask penalties but he was going for him. Actually the offensive pushing can facemask, they can hit you in the facemask, and when he did that he kind of grabbed. You can't have it but sometimes that does happen. It wasn't malicious or an on purpose type thing. You have to let go. I think he's done a remarkable job and continues to get better and better. Clay has always had the ability. The one thing is that Clay tries to play his own game but he's gotten more disciplined from that standpoint and that's why he's going to see more playing time."
On Arrelious Benn:
"Rejus is everything we all know he is. He's a competitor and he's looking forward to this game. He can't stand to lose either and he's going to do everything in his power to do everything he can do in this game."
