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C O A C H S P E A K • E X C E R P T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ' S W E E K L Y P R E S S E R Do you remember the first time you saw Trace play in person or on film, and what did you see that prompted you to recruit him? I don't know if it was one thing that necessarily jumped out to us when we watched him. Typically, when you write down all the factors – when we recruit quarterbacks, we watch the tape and that's one thing. With Trace, we were for- tunate because we were able to watch him, which isn't typical nowadays. You got to see him play on both sides of the ball, on the offensive side of the ball, and safety as well. His transcript was impres- sive. Mom and Dad were impressive. We got a chance to watch him throw in per- son. We were impressed by that. But for me, it's a lot of other things, too, with that position. It was his win-loss percentage in high school. You know, state championships, completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio. To me, when you're trying to evaluate the quar- terback position, you had better look at all of that. And then when you look at all of that, you had better be careful. Some guys have a few checks, but those checks are really strong: really strong arm, great body, whatever it may be, but they're missing a lot of the other checks. Those guys in my [experience], they don't really pan out. You want to get a guy who is very well-rounded and has been able to pro- duce at a high level for a long period of time. If not, you're taking on risk. For us and Trace, the one thing that he didn't pass was the eyeball test. You know, he's not 6-3, he's not 6-4, but I think we also see now in today's football, there are a lot of guys in the NFL and col- lege who are playing at a high level who don't fit the old cookie cutter presenta- tion that people used to have probably at the quarterback position. What are some of the keys to coach- ing defenders to diagnose misdirection plays and all those pre-snap shi7s and motions that Maryland uses? I think in a lot of ways, it's like option football. You may be responsible for the A gap, but then you see the motion fly by and the guy fakes it and you start to kind of driB out of your gap. Then all of a sud- den, here comes that ball screaming through your A gap and we're not sound. So it's guys being disciplined enough to say, I'm going to do my job and I'm going to trust that my teammate is going to do his job. So if I'm the force player or if I'm the contain player, or whatever it may be – A gap, B gap, C gap – I've got to do my job and I've got to do it consistently. What they try to do with all those things is create a little doubt, create a little hesi- tation, and then that hesitation, usually with that motion shiB, is [designed] to try to create leverage on blocks. So you hesi- tate on the back side, and now all of a sudden that guard-and-center combina- tion or that guard-and-tackle combina- tion are able to work up and get a piece of you, because the motion or the shiB made you hesitate. So now the blockers up front get better angles and leverage and now they end up having a running back who averages almost nine yards per carry. Do you know how the speculation about you and the USC job got started, and how would you like to address it? Yeah, first of all, I guess it's that time of year where all this stuffs happens. It's that time of year. It's the crazy, mad time of year, where these type of things happen. So as you guys know, like always, we're focused on Maryland completely, 100 percent. I don't even think it's fair or right to even be talking about that job from, everything I understand about it, but we're completely focused on Maryland. I know that this year in a lot of ways has been harder for Trace than last year, with the injury and the difficulties in the passing game. What has im- pressed you most about how he's han- dled the second half of the season? The way I look at Trace is [that] in some ways we're kind of kindred spirits and souls. I don't know if anything has ever come easy to Trace. He's had to battle and work for everything he's gotten his whole career. I think he's made for this. I think he's built for this. On Saturday aBer one of those touch- downs [against Rutgers], I just said to him, "Hey, we're just going to grind through it. We're just going to work through it." I think that's how Trace has been. He's earned everything he's gotten in life. No one has given him anything. So I think he's built for these type of things. I think that's why there's so much confi- dence and trust in our locker room and coaches with him, because all he knows how to do is walk in a room with a chip on his shoulder and prove people wrong and overcome adversity. I couldn't be more impressed, but I'm not surprised by it. I'm not shocked by it whatsoever. He is built for this, and he's a self-made man in a lot of ways. I know the goal is always to go 1-0 every week, but is there any emphasis this week on the fact that going 1-0 could possibly get you into a New Year's Six bowl and keep you alive for a third consecutive 10-win season? No, not at this point. But I will tell you this, this senior class, you look at what they have been able to accomplish at Penn State. They came to Penn State at a very tough time – we all did – and really bat- tled and worked like crazy to work through it. You look at their record, the senior class, [and this is] maybe one of the most impressive senior classes in school history, all things considered. You look at what this senior class has been able to do in the Big Ten era. If you just take the Big Ten era, you look at what we've been able to do and what they've been able to do over the last three years, this year and the previous two years… pretty impressive. Personal foul penalties haven't been that much of a problem for you, but is it harder to coach that now? You want players to be aggressive, but there's tar- geting now and there are things in the rules that temper or hinder that impulse. Is it harder to coach than it used to be? I think since we've been here, we've been a pretty disciplined team. We had a stretch for a couple of weeks where we weren't, but overall… we've done a good job of it. We've just got to eliminate the ones that are drive-changers, you know, that keep people on the field and those types of things. The rules are the rules. You've got to embrace them and you've got to coach N O V E M B E R   2 1 ,   2 0 1 8 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 10

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