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down on the depth chart, what was the first inkling that you got that he could be a special player given his physical and his mental makeup? I think a couple things. First of all you look at him, and he's an impressive guy in terms of his height, weight, arm length, things like that. His physical testing numbers have been good. I wouldn't say freakish, but they have been really good. But really what proba- bly makes Carl special is that he's somewhat odd. He's a different guy. I talk about it all the time, because I like this. I like that different odd, peculiar way that he has in terms of how driven and how motivated and how intense and how focused he always is. Now, some guys do it in spurts; he does it all the time. I think that work ethic and that mentality and that drive, along with some of the physical skills and traits that he has, have created a re- ally nice complement of skills that have allowed him to be successful. So I don't know if there has been an ah-ha mo- ment, but I know when we created last year's tape, he didn't have as many "splash" plays as he's had this year, but he played at probably a higher level than we realized, aAer going back and step- ping away from it and looking at it from a distance and grading out all the plays. He probably played at a much higher level last year than probably he was given credit for. Are you seeing something different from your punters in practice than you see in the games? Could you talk a little bit about how the punting game impacts what you've been talk- ing about today in terms of calling the game? The last two years, the punting has had a significant impact on our team. If you look back, in the games in which they've punted well and swung field po- sition and pinned people back with the way our defense plays, we've done pretty well. The games in which they've been inconsistent, it's put our defense in tough spots and put our offense in tough spots. Are they more consistent in practice? Yeah. I would say early in the year when Daniel [Pasquariello] started and [Chris] Gulla started, when they both started, they both did some exciting things and some nice things. But just like last year, they've been inconsistent. Last year, I think a lot of that had to do with pressure. I thought we had to clean some things up in our protection. Some of it last year, we were getting the ball off slower. We time every punt in prac- tice, we time every punt in games, as well as hang time and location and those things. So now it's just experience and it's maturity and consistency is the biggest thing. So, yeah, I think those things factor in for sure, and we've got to get back to our special teams being a real strength for us like they were early in the year. Externally, how do you manage the expectations of your audience when you know what the reality is, and how do you think you've done with that so far? That's the hardest part of my job: How do you go out and get people really ex- cited about the season, about the team, about the future, without setting up false expectations at a place that we've talked about before, that no matter what has happened, the day the season starts, everybody remembers 1982 and 1986 and that's their expectation. And to be honest with you, the thing I prob- ably love the most about Penn State is that there is an expectation here for greatness. It's also the thing that can be the most challenging. I get that, that's part of the job. I also get that I come in here and you guys are going to ask tough questions. I get that. I get the fans, I get the media, but I go to sleep every single night feeling really good about what we're doing and how we're doing it. I understand the issues. I see the things that everybody else sees. I know we've got to get better, but coming in here and talking about those negative things or what I would call "throwing people under the bus" – I'm not going to do it. But I think you're exactly right, being able to manage that is probably the biggest challenge. And when I look around the country, I see a lot of places going through similar things, and I study those people and how they do it and there is a fine line to it. But I get it, I get it, I get that you guys have got to do your job, I get how the fans feel, I get all of it, but I've been in the business long enough, I know the things that you need to do to be suc- cessful, long term and short term, and we're doing those things. [Maybe] there are some things short term that you could say you would do differently, but I don't know if they're the right things to do long term, and that's the struggle in our climate of college football now. The time frame and the time lines are different. Our society as a whole is dif- ferent, immediate gratification. O C T O B E R 7 , 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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