Blue White Illustrated

UCF Pregame (09/11/13)

Penn State Sports Magazine

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O'BRIEN CONTINUED FROM 13 With Mike Hull expected to return to the field this week, how do you see the repitions at linebacker playing out? Do you see [Stephen ObengAgyapong's] role being affected at all by that? No, I don't think so. I think, if Hull can go, it would be Hull, [Glenn] Carson, and [Nyeem] Wartman [as starters], more than likely. If Hull has some issues throughout the week, we'll go with whomever we have there – whether it's Obeng or somebody else. But Obeng will play and he'll have a role in the game just like he's had the past two weeks. But he's a guy who is very calm. He's got a good demeanor. School's important to him. He can't miss a class with us. But I mean, he won't miss a class. He'll be in every class. He'll sit in the front row. He'll work hard at it. When it's time to do football, he'll do football. I don't think he's like this guy who's all over the place. He's a very focused guy. He works at whatever the task is that he needs to accomplish. He's shown me, to date, that he's been able to get it done. So I don't think he allows all that stuff to really enter in. He's very, very focused. It's been fun to watch. Hopefully, we can keep talking to him about that, staying focused, winning the day, taking it one day at a time, and he'll continue to be that way. What have you guys done to try to simplify things for Christian both on the field and off the field? You know, it's interesting. That's something I think about a lot, obviously. He's 18 years old, and being the starting quarterback at Penn State, that's a big deal. Everybody understands that. How do you balance redshirting young players when there are depth concerns? We talk about that all the time. We do have a plan for it. On Thursday mornings, as a staff, we sit down and look at our depth – where we're at injurywise. We say, OK, is this coaching him, and he's very important to what we do. guy a red light, a green light or a yellow light? If he's a red light, that means that we're not playing him, no matter what happens. If he's a yellow light, that means that, hey, look, it depends on what happens. If two or three guys go down, then this guy's going to have to play. And if he's a green light, he is playing. We definitely communicate with the player and try to communicate with the parents on what we're thinking as it relates to that player, especially the freshmen. So it's a difficult deal. That's the plan, but that plan changes every week because of your depth at that position. You take, for instance, a kid like Brandon Bell, who we think is going to be a really good player for us. Because of the linebacker depth issue, he played last week. Then you have a kid like DaeSean Hamilton, who's injured right now. He is redshirting, so that's good because we have some receivers there that can play. But at other positions we don't. And that will be an evolving process as we go through these so‑called sanction years. That's just the nature of the sanctions really. Casual Metropolitan Dining Metropolit Metropolitan opolitan Lunch Lunch and Dinner Small Plates Plates Martini Martini Nights RESTA RESTAURANT RESTAURANT AURANT www.GigisDining.com West College & Cato Ave., State College College Cato Ave State College Cat a State a S E P T E M B E R 1 1 , 2 0 1 3 814 . 861 . 3463 14 B L UE WHI T E ON L I N E . COM

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