Q. Can you discuss and describe what you've seen on tape and film of the Penn State wide receivers?
GP: It's been, to be real honest with you, I haven't seen a whole lot at all yet. We've been out on the road since I took the job and have just come off. So we're just now starting to dive into those things and head towards finishing recruiting and all those things. But I have got a chance at least to be around the guys, visit with them, and start just getting to know who they are.
And I'm kind of wanting to learn them as men before I learn them as players. I think if you develop a bias the other way, sometimes in my past and what I've done, it doesn't go as well.
So I want to challenge them to keep an open heart to me and learn how we're going to do things. And I want to do the same to them. I'm hoping as we go through winter workouts and then head towards spring ball, I'm going to develop my own opinions of them while I'm coaching them and not develop opinions when someone else was before I was here.
Q. You guys signed T.J. Jones here, how was it like to make the quick transition to get on the recruiting trail and Penn State had to get a wide receiver. You were the key guy there. What was it like? Take me through that.
GP: Fortunately, I recruited him while I was at Duke. So we already had a relationship. Probably the momentum of that relationship changed when I took this job and then learning the opinion of the offensive staff, Coach [James] Franklin and everybody around him when we got here. It made it an easier transition.
But then we had to get in there and work at it. [Running backs] coach [Ja'Juan] Seider was awesome. Of course, I'm sure you guys know a little bit of our background. So to be able to go down the roads with him and beat up the roads with him again from the years of our friendship was pretty cool to go down there and recruit him.
So it was really a fun process. But it was a good challenge, because T.J., we have a strong opinion of him. I sure do. I think he can be a special young player that comes in and helps us and has a good body and what he's going to be. So, it was an exciting time. But there was already a relationship. So it made it easier to go in there and start going at it here in the last three weeks.
Q. You mentioned having a pre-existing relationship with TJ [Jones.] Any other players on the current roster did you have a pre-existing relationship with?
GP: Not really. Some that I tried, so Tommy Stevens. I recruited Indianapolis from the Purdue days. There's a great story in recruiting him and trying to when Coach [James Franklin] and those had come in and got him committed. I knew Tommy and what a great kid he is. Nick Bowers was another guy I recruited a little bit when I was the tight ends coach early and he's here.
But nothing to where it was just strong relationships of guys that we really dove into. We tried to recruit some, didn't have great relationships with many of them.
Q. What was the great story with Tommy [Stevens]?
GP: His head coach at the time was Coach [Justin] Dixson at Decatur Central. I go in to check in on Tommy and some other young guys. Long story short, I walk into Coach Dixson's class. He leaves me with his class for a second to go get one James Franklin and the rest of the staff that had showed up at the school to see Tommy.
So another girl in that class at the time walks up to me and asks if she can go to the restroom, as if I was the substitute teacher. So for the rest of our relationship I said you will never live this down. I became the sub pretty quickly because Coach Franklin came in.
Q. James Franklin just said you crushed the interview when you came in for the opportunity. The drops and the passing struggles that they endured last year, how aware are you of that, the concerns the fans have with that? And how did you maybe address that in the interview if you did?
GP: Sure, you quickly learn the passion of this place as soon as I was announced. And the amount of Twitter and stuff that blew up. And I appreciate it. But you learn some things. A lot of it you learn how to have tough skin on, because what if we have a drop this year and how will guys respond?
And I think I'm aware of things. I'm aware of the challenges. I'm aware of why I'm here. But for me, I think, and the way that I would want to approach it -- I told a lot of guys and over the years, I think past wideouts that may see anything I say today would say that's him. I think that you approach catching the football just like Steph Curry approaches shooting a 3. And Steph Curry could care less whether he misses.
You can't focus and have this belief of failure every time the ball comes. And if not it becomes this epidemic. And maybe that's what happened in some ways of this thing that kind of just turns into this monster that you can't really stop.
And how do you do that? Just by mental wiring and trying to get a bunch of young men to understand and trust and have confidence and allow me to kind of carry that burden as opposed to them, if that makes sense.
So I'm perfectly aware of the challenges. And sure, hopefully I'm equipped to kind of carry those for them and get the room wired to be able to handle tough times. That's what we're supposed to do as adults and stare down the barrel with them and help them become better, help myself become better and see what kind of product we put on the field in a year.
Q. What are your aspirations? I saw a tape when you were interim coach at Purdue and you said you kind of changed what you were thinking, where you want to go in your career, that head coaching is an option. So where does this fit in your ultimate coaching journey?
GP: Good question. And I appreciate it. Of course, we all have goals. I do have goals. I guess 15 years ago it would have been more for me and to be self-serving and all those things to kind of get to this point of being a leader of something and be seen.
And now the Purdue job and all the things being through that situation and all the way through Duke and now have probably put me in more alignment to know why I'm on this Earth maybe.
And I want to serve my family, my wife and my kids and my players and be around that moment, I guess, if you will, and being able to do it. And, of course, yes, I want to be a head coach one day. That's a goal. I never want to stand in front of you all or anyone else and say, I'm so shocked and surprised that I've made it to this point. I'm not at all. But what I am is really humbled about being able to be here, be in the moment to serve everybody around me, hopefully leave the place kind of better than you found it and see what kind of impact we can make.
Q. I know you haven't had a chance to evaluate that group that you have on campus a lot already, but among the eight scholarship players who are pegged for that room only four have burned a single year of eligibility, so a lack of experience. Have you ever been around a group that young at the wide receiver position? What excites you about that and what's the challenge about that? And last, you set a bunch of high school records in Kentucky during your playing days, you played at the Division I level; what does that do for you for these guys and for recruits who want to talk to you when you can flash that resume?
GP: Sure, the first one, that's interesting numbers, right, to be able to hear them out loud. I've never been around a room that young would be my first answer. Secondly, it is exciting and challenging.
Of course, would you rather walk into a senior-ridden room and a proven room and all those things? Yeah. Anybody who says (otherwise) would be lying.
But it is a challenge. You kind of like the youth that this room that has also bonded with talent. It's a youthful room -- which is always tricky to find leadership in a youthful room -- but also it's very gifted. If we can structure it to find leadership within it and make it what it needs to be from a talent, fundamental issue and go, I think it allows us to kind of be able to preach the sky's the limit.
And sometimes the fun part about coaching young guys and I have had a chance to at least coach some young guys that have had early success, when you're able to do that a lot of those guys don't know any better. They don't know they're supposed to be a little more nervous than they are. They don't know those things.
So I think that will be the cool thing to see these guys grow a bunch because we should be able to see their growth one week at a time in spring practice based off of how they teach and also their youth.
The last part, the glory days of my high school career and the Kentucky days, which were all injury prone, but all kind of shapes who we are. Those are fun things to think about. The more important piece of my resume is that my wife just got inducted into the Kentucky State Hall of Fame. She'll be inducted this spring, which proves that her resume is better than mine.
I do not think that my resume of past catches in high school or college has anything to do with the respect and trust that they'll have of me. I think it's going to be all, in time, of me serving them, making sure I open up their hearts, making sure my knowledge of football, and I give them ways to have more success on the field. And then you'll see their trust and their hearts open up to me. And just like every other room I've grabbed a hold of, then we'll love each other, then the success will come. Then we'll have a step back and then we'll have to stand with each other when it goes ugly, and we'll take another big step towards it. And by then it will all be about the players and not about me.
Q. James Franklin said not every positional coach has to have played that position, but it certainly helps. With you, you're following somebody who played quarterback and coached the wide receivers. How does your experience as a wideout help you to be the most effective wide receivers coach that you can be?
GP: Again, I think the biggest thing, even as old as I'm getting, I still remember what those movements felt and look like. So I would think that my basketball background and the state of Kentucky and those things, there's a huge correlation between wide receiver play and basketball play. You can use a lot of analogy.
And because of that, that feel I hope that I never lose no matter how old I get allows you to kind of feel how they move -- what it looks like, what it feels like, their problems, their issues and how to fix them. And so I think, more than anything, I hope that's probably the parallels that you can grab from because you just remember what that was, what it felt like and their problems.
Q. Could you talk about what it was like transitioning into a new staff in the middle of a busy recruiting period? And also have you been assigned specific recruiting areas, or is that something you'll have to wait until after jumping into the deep end kind of to figure out later?
GP: Sure. You know what, I was very surprised -- this was probably the first time really to dive into it that way. And pretty crazy to fly into another city, take my shirt off, put a shirt on of Penn State that [offensive coordinator Ricky] Rahne brought to me and hit the road with Coach Rahne and go like that. It's a pretty crazy thing.
Because in the regular world, the normal world, if you will, you put in your two weeks notice. And it still amazes my friends outside of athletics. They will say, 'when are you leaving, in two weeks?' 'No, I'm leaving tomorrow.' So that was different for sure.
And as far as recruiting areas, we're trying to get to the bottom of that. We have so much help and support here, it is unbelievable. That was probably the biggest thing that I noticed in getting here. So they're on it. I'm going to take North New Jersey, it's going to be a big piece for me. My days at Purdue in the Big Ten allowed me to kind of take the I-65 corridor and Indianapolis especially.
So I'll get a chance to stay there and work into Cincinnati. And then, of course, we'll be beating up the whole country to find the best wide receivers in the country.
Q. You mentioned Coach Seider and your connections there. What role did he play if any while you were going through the interview process? Did you bounce anything off of him, stuff like that?
GP: Yeah, anytime you have a good friend that you trust through the process, that's something you want to lean on, to be able to ask questions maybe you wouldn't normally ask or get a feel for the situation, get a feel for the area and how it is to live and all those things and to get a feel for the staff.
And he's a guy that I trust and love and have for some time. We both worked together in a special time during 2011 and '12 at Marshall when we did special things on offense and worked around some great men. It was a pretty good resource to have.
Q. Can you talk a little bit about signing day and it was like to be a part of that for the first time?
GP: My only regret is to not have been here in December in some ways to see even how larger it was because of the number of kids we've got in the program. But the first thing that was noticeable was the sheer amount of support and people up there and how it was marketed.
I just thought it was impressive from Coach Franklin to all the people behind the scenes, to the breakfast and the food, just the support around the program on that morning on this morning and just to see how it was sold and marketed and all the people pushing it in the right way to push a program that's obviously one of the top in the country. So that was the most noticeable thing this morning.
