Blue White Illustrated

There are going to be people coming out of the woodwork. So [it's a matter of] just making sure you have these conversations, not only with the young people in our program, but also their families and everybody involved. That's just kind of where we are as a society, and when it comes to football you need to have those conver- sations and you need to make sure you're preparing your guys to be suc- cessful. But Saquon's focus is on the team and whatever he can do to help our team be successful. I also want to make sure that he keeps his focus where his focus needs to be, which is being the best student-athlete he possibly can be and having a great semester, so I can sit up here at the press conference at the end of the year and tell you not only did our team do well collectively academically, but also individually. For our freshmen, this is typically the hardest semester, the ad- justment, the first fall. So I want to make sure he's doing well in those areas. I know that numbers don't always tell the story, especially for an inte- rior D-lineman. But Anthony Zettel only has, I think, two and a half tack- les for loss, no sacks. Is he getting more attention this year, and overall is he playing as well as he did last year? No doubt he's got people's attention. We go into games doing the same thing, saying for the team that we're playing this week, is there a guy on offense, de- fense and special teams who we feel like, if we're not aware of them or have a plan for them, that they can change the game singlehandedly? And that's, I think, Zettel. People are making sure they have dou- ble-teams and they're chipping him and getting the ball out of the quarterback's hands quickly, all those types of things. So I think that's probably the biggest thing. We love Anthony. Think Anthony is doing a great job for us. When you've got him and A.J. on the field, it causes major stress [for opponents]. Then to see Parker [Cothren] come in and do well and Tarow [Barney] come in and do well and also Antoine White. If you haven't noticed, as a redshirt fresh- man, he's been getting more and more reps and making some plays. So that's going to be important for us, not just the rest of the season, but moving for- ward. I realize completion percentage isn't always on the quarterback and there are some other factors, but there were some throws Christian missed on Saturday. I'm just curious, when you look at film, are there things he can tighten up? Footwork? Technique? Was rain a factor? Just what do you see from Christian? I think you're exactly right, it's all of those things. It's some protection issues we've had. Two of our three games have been in the rain and fairly significant rain in my opinion. There are some foot- work issues that we've got to get cleaned up. We're moving the pocket and doing a lot of those other things as well. I think it's a combination. We've had a few drops. As you guys know, we've got to get footwork cleaned up. We've got to make sure we're protecting consis- tently. It's a combination of all those things. I think you're exactly right. The weather factors into it as well. Brandon Bell said earlier today that he likes to play with an edge, and the officials actually told him to calm down a little bit early in that game. How do you approach a player like that who plays with that fiery style where you don't want it to get him in trouble on the field, but you want to not change the kind of player he is? I want all our guys to play with an edge. I don't want them to do anything that's going to cross the line. I don't want them to do anything that's going to embarrass Penn State, our athletic department or the university as a whole, but I want them to play with an edge. This is an aggressive game played by passionate and emotional people, and I want them to play that way. I don't want them to do anything that's going to get a penalty or be selfish, but to me that's how you've got to play the game. You've got to play the game with that type of a passion and play the game with that type of emotion, and you've got to be aggressive. So I'm all for it. I want us to play even more like that. I'd like to see our sideline erupt when our guys make plays. I'd like to see our entire sideline screaming out pass or run or whatever is going to help our defense. When a guy makes a play, I want them to come to the sideline, and I want the entire family to support them and hug them and let them know how excited they are for him. When a guy comes to the sideline and just missed a play, I want the whole sideline to sup- port him, pat him on the butt and tell him how much we love him and we've got his back. S E P T E M B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 5 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 15 PSUtixman@gmail.com www.PSUtixman.com Get your PSU Football Tickets at go t ti cke t s? k c i t t t e k man@g .PSUtixm www.PSUtixman.com at ootba Get yo k c i t t o gm .PSUtixman.com all ur s t s e k

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