Nov. 17, 2015
Opening Statement
JF: Just overall, I want to start by saying that Senior Day and a whiteout is obviously a very, very special opportunity for the Penn State family to come together. I think this Senior Day is probably more important than many that I've been around because what these seniors have done for this program, I think, is so dramatic. These seniors in four to five years have been through what most programs probably go through in 20 years.
You can list it out. Five different head coaches in 27 months. You think about the sanctions. You think about the Bowl. You think about the loss of coaches. You think the loss of personnel and teammates. You just think about everything that these guys have been through, and they're kind of the glue. They're the glue that kept this program together. They're the glue and the foundation that stood strong when Penn State needed them the most.
So for us to go into that stadium with a sellout on Senior Day and it to be a whiteout and for this community and our students and our fans and the alumni to come together more than anything to support these young men and let them know how much we mean to them, how much they mean to us, I think is important.
I did want to start by saying that. The bye week was good, came at a good time. The guys were able to get home on the weekend. I saw Jason Cabinda and some other guys excited about the time off, and then they got home, and their mom had them doing all kind of mommy dos, putting up Christmas trees, cleaning gutters, all kinds of stuff. So I don't think it was the week off they anticipated it being, but I think it was good for them to get away.
Our coaches got on the road recruiting. We were able to get some fundamental work done during the week. Took some of the pounding and running work off of them. Got some young guys some work, got a head start on Michigan. You can only do so much because you can't finalize the game plan until that last game is in.
I think the fact that the players were able to watch Indiana play Michigan and it went to overtime, that was a heck of a game. That was a heck of a game as a fan of football to watch. And then once we got all that information, we were able to finalize our game plans. We're probably a little bit more ahead than obviously in a normal week. Normal weeks are crazy.
Looking forward to that. We're undefeated at home. We feed off of our fans. It's a huge advantage for our defense, playing at home in front of our crowd. And excited about the opportunity to walk into that stadium and be able to play one last time in Beaver Stadium with these seniors and work really hard to send them out the right way.
Q. Good afternoon. Can you be more specific? What did you hope to get done during the bye week? What did you get done? And do you plan to continue to modify practice?
JF: Yeah, for a number of reasons. It's the battle. I mean, it's the battle that you go through as the coach, and as the coach, you want to run as many plays full speed, technique, fundamentals, some of the combination blocks and the banging and defeating blocks and things like that. There's the part of you that thinks that's the right thing to do, and then there's the part of you that is looking down the table at your trainer and what he thinks we should be doing and at [Performance Enhancement Coach Dwight] Galt, what he thinks you should be doing, and all the coaches and what they think we should be doing, and be able to come up with a plan that makes the most sense for Penn State.
I think on top of that, as we know, we're still a little bit short. So the time off is important for us. Probably more important than some other programs, not just for this year, but over the last three, four years. And I think we were able to accomplish that. I felt really good about what we were able to get done this week.
I thought the GA practice we had was a really valuable thing for our program long term. The extra meeting time, we stayed in and had extra meeting time. You're always kind of scrambling with your meetings to get through your installs for that day and have them prepared to practice, where we were able to take 15 minutes off the field and go 15 minutes extra in film room and be able to take your time and go through some things.
Again, the young guy practice was a great one because the coaches and the GAs were able to kind of go through things from day one and not rush through things for the upper classmen when the younger guys are still trying to figure things out.
So I thought we got a lot done. We still need a lot of reps, but I thought we made the right choice. We'll continue to modify. Today, Tuesdays are workdays for us. We'll have pads on. We won't go full pads. We won't go pants, but we'll go helmets and shoulder pads and get some good work in. And Wednesday we'll modify again to just helmets.
Q. James, two quick ones. Your thoughts on the loss of Jordan Lucas and how it impacts the secondary? I know you talked about it a little bit last week after practice, but you're going up against a Michigan team that seems to be throwing the ball all over the place the last few games, almost 800 yards. Your thoughts on Jake Rudock and what he's been able to do down the stretch for Michigan?
JF: I think Michigan has been really playing well on defense all year long, either No. 1, 2, or 3 in the country in most categories. The offense is really starting to come on now. The defense has put them in really good positions with short fields and things like that, and their offense is gaining a lot of confidence.
One of the things that really jumps out, you look at starters for them, they have 18 senior starters. Eighteen senior starters. We have four. That was one of the things that really kind of jumped out when you look at their depth charts. They have a bunch of senior starters. They have a bunch of graduate transfers. They got a bunch of juniors. That's one of the things that jumped out.
They're big and physical on both fronts. I think some of those numbers are a little bit skewed whenever you're playing an overtime game. It skews the numbers a little bit. But, yeah, they are playing with a lot more confidence right now. They're much more explosive on offense. And they're doing a nice job.
The receivers are really coming on, making plays for them. The tight end, [Jake] Butt, is making plays for them. They protect really well, and they're going to try to run the ball, like they do every week.
It's going to be a tremendous challenge. There's no doubt about it. But I'm looking forward to being at home, where we've played pretty good, and we're gaining confidence with those things as well. So should be a great college game. It should be a great college atmosphere. Looking forward to it.
Obviously, losing Jordan [Lucas], a guy who's played a lot of football here, is a captain for us, that's going to have an impact. There's no doubt about it. Fortunately, we have played some other guys, and that's helpful. But whenever you're going to lose a senior starter who's played as much football as Jordan has and a guy who's been a captain, it's going to have an impact. We're aware of that. The guys are aware of that.
Everybody -- you're not going to replace it with just one guy taking a spot. It's going to be a number of guys stepping up to replace his production and his leadership.
Q. Sort of building off of that there, one of those guys obviously is going to be Malik Golden, I would imagine. What does he bring to your defense now that he's going to be out there even more? I know he's been out a lot in your nickel and stuff like that. How does Jordan's injury affect personnel on your base defense, on things like your nickel?
JF: Obviously, Malik coming in, Malik's a guy we've been excited about since we arrived on campus. He's a playmaker. He's athletic. A guy that's played wide receiver. A guy that's played defensive back. And a guy that kind of took the opportunities that he's got and made the most of them. I'm actually excited to watch Malik play. I'm excited to watch him take the next step in his development.
Does it leave us a little bit thin and does it leave us a little bit thin at the nickel as well, like you're saying, the star package? Yeah, there's no doubt about it. We're looking at different ways of solving some of those challenges and some of those issues, whether we play more corners in those situations, that's kind of what we're working on this week. We have a plan, but obviously we haven't practiced yet to see how comfortable we feel yet with that plan.
You come into it on Sunday. You have an idea of what you want to do. You work on it again on Monday, and you go out on practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, and you either build on some things or you eliminate some things that maybe didn't look as good as you expected them to be. So it does leave us thin.
We're not at a point right now where we're going to burn someone's redshirt unless we have to, but that's all part of the discussions going on this week.
Q. I wanted to ask you about Saquon Barkley. How is he physically following the bye week?
JF: The bye week, I think, for Saquon was important. As we all know, a few weeks ago, he got an injury. I would say he's still been productive and still playing well, but he's not 100 percent. I think the bye week for him was probably, like a number of our guys, very important to get him closer back to 100 percent as he possibly can be.
From a workload perspective, each week he gets more confident in his protections, each week he gets more confident in his ability to carry the ball at critical times as well as just a number of reps. Kind of all the way from week one, those things have kind of increased, the number of reps he's gotten as well as the number of carries.
We just feel, like you guys probably feel, he's a dynamic player and doesn't necessarily physically or mentally look like a freshman at times. So we want to continue to build on that. We're fortunate we have depth at that position, where if he does need a blow or we need to rotate some guys in there, we're able to do that, but he's -- at times, he's been a difference maker for us. We want to try to give him opportunities to impact the game.
Q. You start off talking about your seniors and how special they are, the senior class. Can you maybe give -- maybe describe a little bit more the importance of their leadership in particular. It's not a big class. And is there an example or two of maybe what they've meant to you, especially down the stretch here with ten straight games and some of the tough ones you're going against?
JF: I think it's just different. I think -- I've mentioned this before, that I think Penn State culturally as well as historically has really been a veteran leadership program, where your seniors kind of run the show and your juniors kind of run the show, and they teach the young guys what it means to be a Penn State guy.
But then it goes back to what I said before. Right now we have four senior starters, one on offense, three on defense. So it's a different dynamic than what we've been through before. The guys that aren't starting but are still playing have significant roles for us from a leadership perspective, but it's just different, just in number of guys that we have. When you're dealing with a team of 125 guys, that's not usually the case. Usually, you have a larger number as a whole, then you have a larger number that are starting for you.
I think it probably goes -- it's probably hard to describe the impact that these guys have had, especially if you look at the number of them and the amount of impact each one of them has had and how much they've had to carry the load. Where if you're in a situation where you've got 18 or 20 seniors and they're able to spread that load out between the group, that's more of a typical situation.
So specific stories or anecdotes, things like that, I really don't have one. They've been really good with me, kind of explaining to me and the coaching staff some of the things about Penn State that maybe we weren't aware of when we first arrived. They've been really good with the younger players as well.
I think probably one of the things that jumps out to me as much as anything is how our older players, our juniors and seniors, have embraced the younger guys and helped them. A lot of times, it may be at a same position where the younger guy may be playing ahead of them, and that's not always the case. That's not always the case.
Our guys really have that spirit of doing what's best for Penn State and doing what's best for the program as well as, kind of like we talk about all the time, their spirit of service, serving others. I think that kind of trickles down into our program as well. What our guys are doing in the community, what they do for each other, those go hand in hand. I'm really proud of them.
Q. Would a win over a ranked team like Michigan be a good way to measure your progress as a program? And what are your feelings about signature wins?
JF: Yeah, a win would be good. We like wins. It would be awesome. Sundays are much better. Mondays are much better. Again, we don't make one win or one game out different than others. I know other people do. We want to be 1-0 this week. I know perception is a powerful thing because it's that person's reality of how they see situations and how they see things. We want to be 1-0 this week.
Fans, media, everybody else tells stories, and I get that. That's part of it. I understand that. For us, it's just another opportunity to play together. Another opportunity to get a win. I think the thing that kind of makes this a little bit different is it being the last time these guys are going to run out in Beaver Stadium. I think that's probably the biggest difference. Going to be the last time they get off the blue buses and walk down between the fans and their family members.
So, again, the game of football is a little bit different because you play basketball, you can play pickup basketball the rest of your life. You play golf, you can play golf for a very long time. But football typically, when you get done playing with it in high school or college, you don't really play a whole lot after that. It's usually a bigger emotional impact from your last game.
Q. Michigan has had one of the best run defenses in the country. It looks to me, the little I've seen of them, they're in a five-man front almost all the time. How unusual is that? Also, what, if anything, can you learn from what Indiana was able to do last week, where they ran for over 300 yards.
JF: A couple things. You're exactly right. They're in a five-man front all the time. They'll overload you in the box. They're going to play a lot of man coverage, press across the board, even more than usual. A lot of times, if you have two receivers on one side, one will be pressed. One will be off to stop pick routes and things like that, and they just say, no, we're going to cover you press man all the way across the board and make it really difficult to find yards. There are no yards in the box looking at it in the run game, and there are no yards on the perimeter that they're giving you. You're going to have to earn all of it.
So like I talked about, they're a veteran defense. They were good last year on defense and pretty much returned everybody as well. What Indiana was able to do is their back, who's having a heck of a year, he's 230 pounds, was able to break tackles and make people miss, and they wore them down.
Indiana, like we talked about when we played them, they're big on both fronts. They were able to match up size-wise, and they battled them, and they made just enough plays to kind of stay in the game. As the game went on, as the game went down, their O-line and their running back was able to kind of keep chipping away at them.
Obviously, that film, the Minnesota film was another good film for us as well. We watched those two games, games with similar formations, similar philosophies and things like that that are valuable for our guys to see. The Minnesota game, the thing that stood out about that game, probably differently than Indiana, they made plays. That's what really jumped out about Minnesota. They won a bunch of those one-on-one situations and came down with the ball. Indiana was different because they kind of wore them down with the run game and the big backs. So two different types of games. We're probably going to have to do a combination of both.
Q. Clearly, there are reasons why the bye week is important for players health-wise and all that, but are they important for coaches too? Not just from a recruiting sense, because I know you get the opportunity to do a lot of that, but do you take some time to clear your mind too? And is there anything you do differently during a bye week that you can't do during the regular season to kind of get away from it a little bit?
JF: A couple things. Instead of meeting every morning early, early in the morning and staying until late at night, we'd still meet in the morning and then leave a little bit after practice. So get home, see the family, put your kids to bed, those types of things. Saturday, everybody went out on recruiting on Friday, and then Saturday people were able to spend time with their families and their children, which is really important.
I was able to spend all day Saturday with my daughters, which was awesome. And then Sunday, usually we're rushing in to grade the film and do those things. So we still kind of came in at the same time. You're still able to see your kids in the morning for a little bit. And Sunday come in, and instead of breaking down the last film, you just kind of move on to the next one.
So I do think the grind of it, it's important for the coaches to kind of take a deep breath, spend some quality time -- I see my daughters, not as much as I would like. So to be able to spend a whole day with them on Saturday, my girls kept asking me in the morning as I got dressed, they said, are you staying today? Are you going to be here today? Yeah. And then like a couple hours later, are you going in to work? No, I'm here all day. You're stuck with me.
So to spend the entire day with them was awesome. My wife and kids come by the office a lot, either for lunch or beginning of practice or things like that, but to spend a whole day with them for our entire staff with our families is really important. So I was glad everybody was able to do that.
Q. James, based on your prior knowledge of [Jim] Harbaugh and whatever interactions you might have had with him and then watching this year's squad on film, what's your sense of the impact he's had on the program?
JF: Obviously, their whole staff has had an impact. They have. Good coaches, obviously his background with Michigan is helpful, and then back to what I mentioned before, the fact that they have 18 seniors starting for them, and if you count juniors and seniors, they have 23. 23 out of their 25 starters are juniors or seniors. So a combination of all those things.
They're the oldest team in the Big Ten, and they're the oldest team in the country. The combination of that, the staff, the fact that Coach [Brady] Hoke had two top five and a top ten recruiting class, the combination of all those things together has worked out well for them. They're playing really good football right now. I know our guys are excited and our staff's excited to have the opportunity to play them in Beaver Stadium.
Q. I was going to ask you about Harbaugh as well. How much do you know or have followed his career at all? Have you guys ever crossed paths at any point in any of your career at all?
JF: No. Obviously, you see guys on the road recruiting. You see guys at coaching conventions. Obviously, I interact with him at the Big Ten head coaches meetings and things like that. Not a whole lot more than that. I know a lot of people that have worked for him at Stanford or in the NFL, guys that I know personally or have coached with or things like that. So you know people like that, just like you guys probably do in your industry. You either know the person or know someone that's worked with them or that type of deal. But not a large amount of time.
Q. James, I was wondering sometimes guys will ask to be introduced if they're a junior, redshirt junior. Anybody come to you with that? Or anybody who's a non-senior?
JF: Yeah, I think we released those names. I think they're in the notes. I think Anthony Smith is one of the guys. I don't have the notes in front of me, but there are a couple of guys like that.
Q. And my actual question, the run defense, having a chance to go back and look at it, have you kind of put your finger on what some of the issues are there? Is it tackling? Is it more than that?
JF: The thing that's interesting is, if you look over the five years that I've been together with [defensive coordinator] Bob [Shoop], what we've done a good job of is limiting big plays, limiting big plays in the pass game, which this year we've done a good job of that, and limiting big plays in the run game. Bob's got some statistics that I don't have in front of me, but if you look at a large percentage of our runs, we've played very good defense. But there's been too many explosive runs.
You're going to get a run against you for 8 yards or 12 yards. You can't have the runs for 35 and 45. Those kill you. They obviously swing field position, they swing momentum, and that's what we're not doing a great job of, and that's just as easy as a guy who's coming up from the second level or the third level that doesn't fit correctly, and now all of a sudden, instead of tackling the guy for a 12-yard gain, it now goes for 35. That's what we haven't done a great job of this year at times is giving up big plays in the run game. Again, for five years we've done a good job of that.
So that's been an emphasis all week long, things that we've talked about, things that we've discussed with our players, with the coaching staff. We looked at it from every angle. We went back and studied the last five years. That's the biggest difference. The biggest difference is the explosive runs. It's not like we're seeing or facing different schemes. It's about that second level, the linebackers, and the third level of the defensive backs, making sure they get the guy on the ground and that our fits are correct.
Q. James, you touched on how much this senior class has been through. I wonder how long it took for them to kind of embrace the coaching staff that's here now and how vital was that. You kind of touched on that a little bit too, but how vital was that in keeping the program going after everything you've been through.
JF: We talked about that a lot. There's probably been 25 articles about that, about when we got here, all the changes, the resistance, the trust, that our players were really close together. It was just another group of coaches coming in. We've talked about that a great deal, but, obviously, that's something that's imperative in any organization, any team, and specifically a football program. That's really important.
As you can imagine, no different than anything else, as you keep going through change, change, change, as much change as we've had the last four or five years, it makes some of those things challenging and difficult. But they've been unbelievable. They've been awesome. The feedbacks have been great.
I think Coach Galt has had a real impact in that area. He always has every place I've ever been with him, in terms of, as the coaches are in offices watching film all day, he's kind of down in his office eating protein bars and shakes and hanging out with the players, kind of sitting in his office talking through issues that he's working through with them as kind of a father figure in our program.
Obviously, they do the same thing with our coaches as well, but sometimes he's looked at a little bit different, spends a lot of time with them. He has such a positive way about him. But he's been a huge part of that and always has been every place we've been.
Q. Coach, in facing Michigan this week, suppose they do load up the box as they have been and you have to deal with Jourdan Lewis at corner. What have you seen of him on film?
JF: He's really good. If you look at some of the analytics companies out there, there are people that say he's the most productive, best corner in the country. The amount of times that he's been targeted and the amount of pass break-ups and interceptions. Typically, the game plan with them is he's matched up with the best receiver. I read some things and listened to some things with some of the press conference notes where that's a big deal for him. He's not real happy if he's not matched up against what's considered to be their best wide receiver each week.
And he's done a really good job. He's done a really good job of that. So we're expecting to see some of those things this week as well. We have a lot of faith and confidence in our wide receivers the last half of the year. They've really made some big plays for us, been explosive. We're going to have to run the ball. It's not like we can just say we're going to load the box up and just throw it every down. We're going to have to stay with the run and be willing to take some shots down the field, probably very similar to a Maryland type game, where they kind of did the same thing. They loaded the box up and played man coverage and said, you consistently won't beat us enough times to win the game.
So we're going to have to look for ways to run the ball and be aggressive and not abandon that and stay balanced. Obviously, finding a way to have some success early on offense and defense to allow us to do that, because the last thing you want to do is get in a situation where you're down by some points, and now you feel like you have to throw the ball to get back in the game, and you become one-dimensional, which is the last thing you want to do against one of these types of teams.
So those things are going to be a challenge, but they're going to be important to our success.
Q. What are some of the challenges in preparing for a guy like Jabrill Peppers, who is on the field all the time and is successful on every side of the ball?
JF: It's funny because I think Jabrill is a guy who we have a lot of respect for on tape and gets a lot of attention nationally and in the media, and from a recruiting standpoint when he came out of high school. On offense, he's in there. They're going to try to get his hands on the ball. Whether it's as a receiver or a running back, he's an explosive guy. You look at his 100-meter times in high school, he's obviously an explosive guy, and he's not built like a track guy. He's put together.
Same thing on special teams, as a returner, he's able to impact the game in that area. And then on defense they play him all over the place. They play him at safety. They play him at nickel. They play him at corner. They play him at outside linebacker. He plays all these different roles for them. That's kind of who they are on defense, they play a lot of different packages.
They match up. So if you're in 22 personnel, they're going to be in a four-four defense. They have four linebackers on the field and four down linemen. You're in 11 personnel, they're going to be in nickel. They match up a lot with what they do. They got a lot of different personnel packages. He's a part of almost all of them. But he's doing a nice job for them.
Q. After the bye week, how would you assess Christian Hackenberg's development from the beginning of the season until now?
JF: I think last week we came in here. There's people talking about Christian as maybe one of the hottest quarterbacks in the country the last six games and doing some really good things. So their redshirt senior, graduate transfer the last couple of weeks is starting to come on, and Christian, really the second half of the year, really playing well. I think he's doing some good things. Some of the checks, some of the run checks he's been able to get us in to create big, explosive plays for us, I think, has been important.
So it will be interesting. It will be interesting to see Christian and what he's going to be able to do and their quarterback and what he's going to be able to do in their offensive system.
Q. James, this is a little bit of follow up to what we asked you earlier, but Ohio State has kind of set the standard not only in the league but in the country. Where do you see this, the importance of winning this game to the development of your program. I mean, how much would that accelerate your progress?
JF: Again, it's going to be the same answer. We're excited about having the opportunity to be 1-0 this week and play a good football team in Michigan, who happens to be ranked, but it's not like we're going to approach this game differently. It's not like come Sunday we're going to feel differently than any other opportunity or any other game. The one thing that's different, like I mentioned before, is that this is the last time these seniors will play in Beaver Stadium.
Q. Coach, you talked about the impact the seniors have had in the community, and the trust that's been built the last couple of years. What have you taken personally from that process? What have you learned?
JF: I think you look at the coaches' backgrounds and players' backgrounds, I don't think I've ever been at a place like Penn State where the community and the students and the players take such an active role in so many different service opportunities. I've been places where maybe there's one specific service opportunity that the team gets really involved in, but our guys are involved in so many. Our team is involved in so many. The student body is involved in so many.
I think THON, I think I've mentioned that before, I think THON has a huge impact on our student body, has a huge impact on our athletic teams, and I think it has a huge impact on our university as a whole in terms of service, in terms of giving, in terms of trying to make someone else's life or situation a little bit better.
So that's probably the thing that's probably hit me the most about Penn State is this sense of family, this sense of community, this sense of giving that we have.
Q. During the bye week, you guys do your self-assessment and stuff. Red zone defense, you guys during the bye week have been able to diagnose any issues that are plaguing you guys. You're last in the conference.
JF: I think one of the things that really jumps out to us is we need to be a little bit more multiple in the defenses that we're running. When we do run the defenses, we need to make sure that we're running them the way they're supposed to be run and more disciplined and be more disciplined in the defenses we're running and execute them the way they need to be executed. And on top of that, I think we need a little bit more variety, and a little bit more variety in the things that we're calling and the things that we're doing.
It's no different than anything else. If people know we're going to be in this coverage and this formation, whatever it is, then they've got a chance to really scheme against it. When you can show different looks and different things to keep people on their toes and keep them a little bit uncomfortable, that's what you want to do.
Q. Talking about senior leadership, Christian's the only person at Penn State to be two-time captain as quarterback underclassman. Can you talk about the last two years his leadership, kind of as a surrogate senior?
JF: I think it's been good. I think last year was interesting because he was kind of forced into that situation because of just the dynamics of our team. And I think he handled it really well. I remember early on in the season, him kind of stepping into the huddle as a true sophomore and kind of everybody looking at him to make the play or provide the leadership or the temperament that the team needed at the time.
I think this year he's much more comfortable in that role. And I think he was comfortable in that role last year, but maybe not all of it. This year, he's got a lot of it on his shoulders, but now he's been in that position before.
So I think he's grown probably as much as any player in the country in terms of leadership, in terms of adversity, in terms of all the things that he's been through in a very, very short period of time and how he's handled it. It's kind of like we were talking about you're comparing programs, you're comparing the different programs in this conference. You're comparing different quarterbacks in this conference. You're comparing different programs and quarterbacks across the country.
I think whenever you're making those decisions, you have to look at the situations they're in. When you're comparing quarterbacks, you have to compare all the situations and all the circumstances that go into it. I think, when you're comparing programs, you have to compare all the situations and all the circumstances going into it. It's not just about the end of the day, the records or the completion percentage.
I think, if you think about the impact that Christian Hackenberg has had on our program the last three years and where this program would have been without him, I think it's pretty significant, and I think that's the thing to me that probably isn't talked about enough. Everybody just kind of looks at the win-loss record. They look at the recruiting class ranking. They look at the touchdown to interception ratio or the completion percentage. And there's so much more to the story than just that about individual players, about individual programs, about all those things. To me, that's the thing that I don't think is discussed enough.