Blue White Illustrated

COACHSPEAK | EXCERPTS FROM BILL O'BRIEN'S SPRING PRESSER How concerned are you [about] leadership, [considering] all the seniors you lost? I wouldn't say it's a concern. I think it's more that every year's different. And so there's definitely a group of guys from last year's team who played a lot of football for us – John Urschel, Glenn Carson, Adrian Amos – who certainly have leadership ability and were part of that leadership team last year. So now it's time for some of those younger guys to have a good spring practice and work hard and help us in that role, too. So we'll see how that develops. But this year is a different year, and I think we've got some good guys coming back who played a lot for us last year. How do you see the linbacker corps? We don't have a lot of depth at linebacker, that's for sure. We have guys there who played a lot of football for us last year – Glenn Carson, Mike Hull. Nyeem Wartman didn't play a lot. He got injured [vs. Virginia], but we think he has a really bright future. Ben Kline won't be [practicing] in the spring, but we know that he's going to help us in the fall as a special teams player and then fighting for time at linebacker. I'm really looking forward to watching Hull, Carson and Wartman play together, because again, those are three guys who didn't really play together that much last year. It was Carson, [Michael] Mauti and [Gerald] Hodges. All three of those guys have had excellent off-seasons. Glenn Carson and Mike Hull have really worked hard. They are leaders on this football team. They are tough guys, good players. Then Nyeem, I think he worked very hard this off-season, and we are looking forward to seeing what he can do. But there's certainly not a lot of depth there, so it's going to be imperative for myself to monitor that and make sure that we are not giving those guys too many reps. How is the transition going for new defensive coordinator John Butler. How much of a learning curve do you anticipate the guys having this spring? The foundation, the terms, the language of the defense will stay the same, so I don't think that will be a big problem. John is an excellent football coach. A lot of you guys have been to practice and watched him coach. He's very detailed. He's intense. He's a quick thinker. He's done it before, albeit not at Penn State. M A R C H SPRING CLEAN O'Brien said there's "certainly not a lot of depth" at linebacker, but Glenn Carson, Mike Hull and Nyeem Wartman will be the starters for spring practice. Patrick Mansell But he's run a defense before. He's just a very bright guy. I really enjoy coaching with him, and he's going to do a really good job for us. Would it be accurate to say that ideally you would like to redshirt Christian Hackenberg? That is not necessarily the case. I mean look, you bring these guys in, they are on full scholarship. Unless they are injured, you're going to put them into the mix and let them compete and you're going to play the best players. You are looking to go out there and put your best football team on the field Aug. 31 [vs. Syracuse]. We are a long, long way away from that. But we don't really look at anybody and say, "We are definitely going to redshirt you." Do you feel comfortable with the personnel moves you have made? We moved Garry Gilliam from tight end to tackle. That was a discussion that Garry and I had, and I think so far that's been a really good move just from what he's done in the weight room, how he's adapted to that position so far, and now we let him go play. Then we moved Malik Golden. That was another discussion that Malik and I had. What we may do with Malik is work with him half the practices on defense [DB] and half on offense [WR]. Maybe the first seven or eight [practices] on defense and the last seven or eight on offense and do something like that. We also moved Nate Cadogan from offensive tackle to defensive tackle and we 2 0 , 2 0 1 3 7 are going to look at him maybe half and half, too, kind of like in that Malik deal. So those were discussions that we had with those players. Certainly there are other moves that maybe made because we are going to try to do what's best for the football team. If we think a guy can help us on defense and maybe still play offense, because of the numbers that we have… we'll certainly look at doing that. With Steven Bench and Tyler Ferguson, can you break those guys down? Are they the same type of quarterbacks, playing styles? I would say they are different. I think that there are some similarities. Two different people, first of all. Steven has been in the program for a year and Tyler just got here in January and they are both working at it. I would say Steven probably knows it a little bit better than Tyler right now just because he's been here for a year. That's not Tyler's fault. He's catching up and he's doing a good job learning. They are both athletic. They both can throw the football, and now it's going to depend on how well they can make decisions and how accurately they can throw the football. They both want to be coached. They are both on time. They sit in the front row and they both pay attention and take a lot of notes. It's a really fun group to be around. We have Austin Whipple and D.J. Crook in that room, too, and we think they are going to really help us with depth. It's just been fun to be around these guys so far. B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M

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