Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/197730
O'BRIEN CONTINUED FROM 13 playing well. Adam was one of those guys that was running the ball well as a running back, and we were trying to get him involved in special teams. Then one day, I think a couple weeks ago, he came up to one of us – whether it was me or one of the other coaches – and said, "I'm a holder. I can hold, too." So we tried him out there, and he does a nice job. So it'll either be him or Alex Butterworth holding [vs. Ohio State], because Alex is a good holder, too. The fact that Alex has punting duties, you try not to put too much on his plate, but he's a good holder, also. Ryan Keiser probably wouldn't be able to hold because of his [hand] injury. But Adam has done a nice job of going in there and filling that role. What's it been like coaching Jordan Lucas, and how important has he been to this defense and secondary? Jordan Lucas is one of the better football players on our team. He's just a great competitive kid. He is tough, plays hurt, very good in man coverage and really good in zone coverage of understanding routes. He's got great ball skills. I think he could also play safety. Right now we play him at corner. He plays on many special teams and just does an excellent job. He's only in his second year playing. He brings a competitive toughness to our football team that I really like. out quickly that I didn't know a lot about football, and so I wouldn't even begin to compare how my playing days affected my coaching. I played outside linebacker, and as I gained more weight they moved me inside closer to the ball and put my hand on the ground. I was a defensive tackle in my last year at Brown. I'm supposed to ask you about "Go Bruno." More specifically, can you talk about your playing days at Brown? Bruno is a nickname for Brown, so that's usually a text I send to Phil Estes, the head coach of Brown University. I think they're like 3‑2 right now. So "Go Bruno" is like "We are Penn State." Playing days, one of my least favorite things to do is to talk about myself as a player or myself as anything. But I just loved playing, I loved being on the team. I loved being a teammate with these guys that I played with at Brown. We were not very good. You can go look it up. We didn't win many games. We were in some close games, but we didn't win many. Really, once I got into coaching I found Central Florida went on the road and beat Louisville. Do you think that makes people look at your loss against UCF a little bit differently? That's up to you guys to talk about, but I texted with Coach [George] O'Leary. He texted me after Michigan, and then I was able to watch a lot of that Louisville game. I thought they did a great job. They were down at one point, and then came back and won the game. I think [quarterback Blake] Bortles is an excellent player. I think every game is different. I think that's up to you guys to decide. That's not up to me. I think Central Florida beat us on that day and played better than us and coached better than us. So that day, the better team won. I think they went down to Louisville [last week] and played a whale of a football game. Get 15% OFF each time you visit your student Lion Co untry L lioncountrylodging.com odging .com PE ParentNN STATE Discoun t Plan O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 14 B LUE WH I T E ON L I N E. COM