Sept. 7, 2010

Joe Paterno Press Conference
September 7, 2010

Q: Joe, on Saturday you said Alabama might be the best team you've faced since the Miami team in the 1986 Fiesta Bowl. What impresses you most about Alabama?
COACH PATERNO: Well, just about everything. They've got great speed, got wonderful skill people and they have a quarterback (Greg McElroy), I don't know if he's ever lost a college game. They play with enthusiasm. I know they are breaking in a new kicker but other than that they are fairly experienced. I know they've lost some people but they've got some people who've played. May not have been starters and they're extremely well coached. Nick's done a heck of a job with them. They come at you all day. They have talent, they're well coached and they love to play and I think that combination's tough.

Q: Would like to ask you about Julio Jones, the Alabama wideout. Not only is he fast, but he's big. And I was wondering how big of a challenge he's going to be Saturday for your secondary?
COACH PATERNO: Well he's going to be a big challenge because you've got to stop the running game. Even though the one kid (Mark Ingram), I don't know whether he's going to play or not, the Heisman Trophy winner, but the other kid's (Trent Richardson) an awfully good back. And the quarterback, as I said, scrambles so well so that if you go after him and you miss him then you're ending up with him out of the pocket throwing the ball downfield to the big kid, the big wideout. So, he's going to be a big problem for us, yeah. He's very talented. He's not only big and fast; he's got good hands. Sometimes those big guys don't grab some passes but he does. He blocks. All their kids block. This is an awfully good running team.

Q. Joe, what were your impressions of Nick Saban were when he was at Michigan State and did you think that he could be this successful if he had better talent?
COACH PATERNO: Michigan State was tough (Nick Saban was MSU coach from 1995-99). His teams have played...we played Michigan State, and they played tough. One year we had to beat them with a super play by Bobby Engram. I think there was '95 (correct) or '96. He took a little pass, and literally pushed his way into the end zone and had it at the end of the football game. I think Nick has a way of getting them to hustle and drive, and he's a tough guy. And his kids play tough. So he's got a little better talent...not a little bit, but he's got better talent at Alabama than he had at Michigan State. No good reason to have...but the same kind of attitude, the same kind of hustle; the details, the fundamentals, the toughness. So it's not much different. It's not much different except I think he's got a little bit of talent.

Q. How would you assess the run game from Youngstown State and its preparedness for Alabama?
COACH PATERNO: I don't think we ran the ball very well against Youngstown, to be honest with you. Again, the thing that I have to get across to people is just how young this football team of ours is. It's the youngest team I've ever really coached. And it's young across the board, even though there are three older kids playing on the offensive line. The tight end, and we played the freshman kid (Garry Giliam) at tight end because we've had some bad luck with (Andrew) Szczerba who is hurt. The starting freshman quarterback (Rob Bolden)....so there are a lot of little things in there that have made it tougher for us to be a good running team. Just did not run the ball well enough against Youngstown to think that we could have any kind of success against a team that plays as tough and as completely on defense as Alabama does.

Q. Just talking about the running game, how about the offensive line, and your thoughts on what they need to do any better come up?
COACH PATERNO: I think we have to do better everywhere. We did a decent job defensively, but we didn't come up with an interception, in all fairness to our secondary. The Youngstown kid was very precise. Didn't throw very many deep passes. Threw a lot of little screens. So we really didn't have a chance to do much in that area and they protected the ball well. So, that part of it I get back to the point where you asked about the left side. None of these kids have played much football, even though some of them are not freshmen or sophomores, but they have not played a lot. But the whole...we're not a cohesive group yet. And I blame a lot of that on the fact that so many kids have not played much. There's not a lot of real leadership. There is not a dominate player in that group. Hopefully, that will develop as the season goes along. We'll learn from it. It will be a tough team with a line of success because they're so good. But we're learning from it. And I think we'll be a better football team as we go along. But it's a young team. I think for me to be critical of the left side of the offensive line would really be, you know, maybe not fair. I think they need some time to play.

Q. Getting back to the youth of your team. You're going to Tuscaloosa, playing in front of over 100,000 hostile fans. How do you feel the youth will handle that atmosphere? And in particular, your freshman quarterback?
COACH PATERNO: If I knew the answer...well, we're going to do it. I don't know how we're going to handle it. I hope we go down there and we realize it's one of those opportunities. You only get so many in a college career. Most of these kids will not be pro players. They'll go down and enjoy it, understand you're playing against one of the best college teams we've ever played against. But just go out and do what you can do. Do it as well as you can do and try to learn, and I think we will learn from it. I think there will be a lot of things that we're going to have to do that we have not done yet, which you can't get done in practice. We didn't get them done because Youngstown was well-organized, and well coached and they hustled. They don't have quite the athletic ability or the depth and speed in certain situations that Alabama has. But I think... and we're away. I think the point you start with is the fact that it's going to be a big hostile crowd. Again, that's part of it. That's why you come to places like Penn State because you have opportunities to play in games like this. That doesn't mean a miracle's going to happen. We come home and we'll be better having played the game and we'll go on from there.

Q. Would you mind talking about your relationship with Paul Bryant and what he meant to the sport of college football overall? What did it mean to you to run on to a field named after him?
COACH PATERNO: I'll talk about my relationship with Paul Bryant sometime this spring, okay? Right now it's Penn State versus Alabama. We've got a bunch of kids who, a year from now they stick my picture up and say, "who would wear a funny hat like that these days?" I think it's two football teams playing, and I don't think they care about Coach Paterno, and a guy by the name of Bryant who used to coach their team. I think right now Alabama is the defending national champions, and I think they want to repeat, and we want to get to be a better football team than we've been so far.

Q. Last week you talked about Evan Royster being a little overweight. I wonder with his performance on Saturday, does he feel like he's overweight? How are you dealing with that?
COACH PATERNO: I don't think he's overweight now. He's down about 218. And now the weight problem is not one of his ability to do some things. It's about his stamina. It's a situation where he's going to have to carry the ball 20 times. The last two years we've flanked him some, made him a slot back, a receiver, did a lot of different things. Wasn't as nervous. If he was too heavy he might not be able to do some of those things as well as he has been. But he got his weight down. We've got to give him running room. And he didn't have much running room (vs. YSU). But as we go along and we get a little bit more experience underneath the center, and we can do a few more things with formations and different things like that where we can incorporate him a little bit more and some of the pass game and things of that sort, he'll be more of a factor. But right now, as I keep repeating, we're young and we're trying to just come along and not ask kids to do things that they're not ready to do. Just get better, get better. Work hard in practice, play the game hard, learn from this opportunity to play against a team as talented as Alabama is, learn from it, come back home and you'll be better for it and go from there.

Q. Six or seven years ago, I think Penn State was originally supposed to be playing these games with Alabama, but the Alabama program wasn't where it is now, and they asked to push it back. Were you involved with those discussions between Alabama and Tim (Curley)? How did you feel about it at the time about these games being pushed back?
COACH PATERNO: Yeah, I was involved with it. The athletic director called, Mal Moore, and they had just lost 15 or 16 players in some kind of academic - not academic - but some kind of NCAA violation. And he said, "you know, our program's down. Can we postpone the series for a couple years so we can get our feet back where we think we should be?" And I said, "well, it's okay with me." But you've got to talk it out with Curley, our athletic director. I think you have to ask him. I know that I told him it was okay with me. What went on with Tim, I don't know. It appears that Tim was receptive to that, so we ended up with this home-and-home with them now.

Q. There have been 13 games in this series. You've been involved in all of them. Can you talk about what it's like to play Alabama again after such a long time away?
COACH PATERNO: Well, the first time we played them I was assistant coach, and we played in the (1959) Liberty Bowl. The thing I've acknowledged so much about Alabama is, even at that time, none of the Southeastern Conference schools played any blacks. When we played Alabama in the Liberty Bowl in 1959, they did not have a black, and we had Charlie Janerette, and a couple of stories about that, which I won't bore you about right now. But we tried to have a home-and-home with some of the Southeastern Conference teams. You can't get them to come up (to the Northeast). We had Tennessee; that was supposed to be home at home. We played down there in '71, and they were supposed to come up here the next year and they backed out. Bob Woodruff was the athletic director, and we said no, they have to come back up here, and one thing led to another. And I said, "we'll go down to their the field for lights...if it's a night game." So, they put up lights. So, we ended up going down there two years in a row. Alabama has been willing to come home-and-home. We've had home-and-home games with Alabama. And we've had good games, a good series with them. So I think that's...I can't speak to them, but as far as Penn State's concerned, I think the Alabama Penn State game is a good game for us. Even though I feel like we we're out-manned because of age and things of that sort and maturity. Still, it's a great experience to take a bunch of kids down to the stadium, and such as the one we're going to play in with that many people and the kind of enthusiasm. And they'll learn from it. They'll be better, they'll remember. So I've tried to say you only get so many great experiences in college. It's not something that keeps going on and on and on. It ends pretty quick.

Q. Can you talk about what kind of impact the 1979 Sugar Bowl game (vs. Alabama) may have had on you and the program, specifically?
COACH PATERNO: Well, I remember we lost it (14-7). They had a great goal line stand. I think that game was a great defensive game. Alabama had a lot of injuries. The linebacker (Barry Krauss) was a great player. Both the middle linebacker and so forth. But they were all well for that game. And it was one heck of a football game defensively, anyway.

Q. (Rob) Bolden enjoyed some success on Saturday, and really was universally praised by everyone. What kind of young man is he? Will he take all of that in stride and stay humble about it? Or do you have to talk to him about keeping it day to day, and keep it in perspective?
COACH PATERNO: Well, I hope he will. He's a...when we decided to have him start the first game, and you know as well as I do, a true freshman, we had to have some strong reasons for his personality, his character, his poise, and he's going to have his problems. He's going to get knocked around. We can't protect him (vs. Alabama) like we did. He's going to get knocked around. He's going to have trouble finding open people. It's not going to be easy for him. But I don't think he's going to lose his poise. Do I think he's going to have the kind of success he had? No, Alabama's too good for that. Hopefully he comes out of that ballgame feeling that he's learned something. I think we can put him in a position where he has some success.

Q. What did you see in Rob Bolden against Youngstown State as far as actually looking at the film? You can look at that and say he is a true freshman, but are there signs he can play against Alabama and play well?
COACH PATERNO: Well, I don't know that I've thought about it that way. We played Bolden because I thought he was the best kid to play at that time. And I'm hoping he's improved. He'll go on against Alabama and get better. If something happens, I feel confident that the other two kids (Matt McGloin and Kevin Newsome) can play and will be able to step in there and do some things. But, Bolden isn't going to beat Alabama by himself. Bolden's got to go down there and do the job that he can do...be careful with the football, don't do stupid things. Understand we're going to have a lot of adversity. And go from when we play them next week and see what we can get done play after play. I mean, it's a football game, not the Crusades.

Q. The '79 game was mentioned. That turned out to be kind of early in your career as it worked out. I'm wondering how much you gained bout bowl preparation after that?
COACH PATERNO: I haven't got the slightest idea. We were pretty good. We had one or two Bowl games in '68 or '69 down in the Orange Bowl against two good teams, Missouri and Kansas. We had played in the Sugar Bowl in '75. We played Alabama in the first game we played in the Superdome (in the 1975 Sugar Bowl). I don't know. Really, we played...we were a couple of plays away from winning and losing. You play a couple of good games and you win. You could debate it.

Q. You have said you didn't feel you had gotten enough done up here (prior to the 1979 Sugar Bowl). And I just wondered how much it may have changed after that in your preparation?
COACH PATERNO: Not enough. Not that I couldn't in '79, but I could in '68 and '69. I don't think it will be any different. If it was a regular football game, and if I learned something in the back of my head, maybe I used it. I don't know. I don't think about those things.

Q. Do you anticipate rotating Johnnie Troutman and DeOn'tae Pannell on Saturday?
COACH PATERNO: I haven't thought about it. Really.

Q. Teams from the SEC have won the last four national championships, Alabama last year. Do you feel that's a coincidence or is it a trend? Is the college football power down in the south right now?
COACH PATERNO: I think the Southeastern Conference is a little ahead of people as far as playing a championship game and everything else. I think that one of the reasons I was so vehement about the Big Ten playing after the last Saturday in November, whenever it was, was because we went out there playing in the (2009) Rose Bowl, and Southern Cal had played two games after we played. And I thought we had to better prepare them early. And I think maybe the Big Ten would reduce the gap. I think the Southeastern Conference has been a little ahead of it. And I think they've done a better job with the media. I think the Big Ten Network is something that I've....because I was not sure it was the way to go. It has helped (increase Big Ten media exposure). The Southeastern Conference had its annual meeting in New York City this year. We're still going to Chicago. You're saying the Southeastern Conference has been very, very media aware. They've done a little better job. Now, I think the addition of Nebraska - even though I hoped we could take an Eastern team in - I think the addition of Nebraska has been a big move for the Big Ten. And I think it has a lot to do with the public's perception of what we are.

Q. How do you plan on stopping the depth of Alabama's wide receivers speed?
COACH PATERNO: Well, we talked about that. We talked about the big kid. The thing about it is, I'm repeating myself because that question was asked and I said when the quarterback moves around a lot, he's tough to handle....He scrambles outside the blitz in the pocket. He's played good football, and he did a good job. If he's outside, he can run. He's a heck of a competitor. I don't think he's lost a game. I think he does a good job with the tight end and the offense. I think he's a guy that when they've been in trouble, he's answered for them. So, I think it's such a complete offense. If you don't play one aspect of it, you're going to be in trouble. Because their running backs are tough. They really, even though they may not have the Heisman Trophy winner, the other kid is is it (Trent) Richardson or Jefferson? I mean, he can go. He might be faster than the other kid (Ingram). They're tough kids. It's tough to bring him down. So we have to worry about the wideouts, period. We have to worry about their whole football team.

Q. Is there anything in particular you learned from Bear Bryant about coaching whether it was in conversation or on the team?
COACH PATERNO: I don't want to talk about Bryant, really. I think that's not good for the kids playing the game today. I just don't want to get into that with them. I think Penn State's playing Alabama, and there are a bunch of kids...why get into it?

Q. You said earlier, you touched on McElroy, and as far as his ability and that kind of thing not losing a game. You had a quarterback a little while back, John Shaffer, who was in a similar situation. Do you think there is any link there to these winning quarterbacks and what they do to be so successful?
COACH PATERNO: I haven't thought of that. I think Shaffer was Shaffer was not a great high school quarterback. In fact, his high school coach, Gerry Faust, went to Notre Dame and did not recruit John out of high school. I had looked at John on tape, and I liked John. I thought he was smart, and I liked his poise, I liked his family. I thought he could become, eventually, become a good quarterback. And Gerry said to me, "he can't throw well enough." I said, well, "we don't throw the ball long much. " So we went and then he had a couple of other offers from Big Ten schools....So he was quite a guy. I don't compare him with anybody...But Shaffer was a producer, productive, very productive.

Q. Joe, how much does losing (Marcell) Dareus being out does that hurt their defense? And how much does it hurt them if they don't have (Mark) Ingram? COACH PATERNO: You'll have to ask Nick Saban that. I can't you know, we've got to play the guys they're going to play. The guy, if he's not playing, the other guy's (Trent Richardson) one heck of a football player. I mean, they play a lot of people. It isn't like you go out there and there's (just) 11 guys out there. They've got a lot of people and they're very well coached. I mean, they know where the ball is, how to lineup. They all tackle well, they all hustle, okay? It's great competition for the kids to play. So how much they're going to miss the kids that are having problems, I don't know. I mean, look at the Texas game last year. He (Richardson) played a heck of a football game against Texas.

Q. Bobby Bowden has been invited by Alabama to attend the game. Have you talked to him at all? Do you have any plans to see him down there?
COACH PATERNO: Well, I don't know. Bobby's got an open invitation to come up any time he wants to come up to a football game. Bobby coached in the state of Alabama. He coached at Samford. In fact, the first time I met him he was the head coach; he came up to spring practices. And I think both he and his wife went to high school in Birmingham. He's been here before. Because when we played West Virginia, we played West Virginia eight, nine years when he was down there. So I never even thought about inviting him up to a game. He's got an open invitation to come to any game he wants to come to.

Q. Are you going to see him when you're down there in Alabama?
COACH PATERNO: Well, what do you want me to do? He's going to be there. I mean, he's the guest of Alabama. Alabama hasn't invited me to any social events (laughter).