Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/703041
all week for it and you go out there on Saturday and they give you a whole other ball of wax. You've got to train guys and have a plan that can allow you to defend a lot of different things. … You know, it's not about the scheme. It's about the fun- damentals, the technique, the mentality. It's about having a good, solid plan. BWI Does that complicate or simplify things for the players? PRY Two things: I think you have to coach mentality and you have to have your group more ready to go than your opponent week in and week out. You've got to have your group in the right frame of mind to play their best. That includes practice, that includes meetings. They have to have a great week of preparation. And to do that, these kids have girlfriend problems, classroom problems, friend- ship problems, family problems. They have all these things going on in their lives, but when they come to you for meetings and practice, you've got to do a great job of getting them tuned in and concentrating on what's important for football that day. Same way on Saturday. It's your job as a coach to get your group ready to play their best ball and to be in the right frame of mind. You can have a group that's trained their butts off, that's more talented, but if they go out there and they're not in the right frame of mind, it's hard for them to play well. The second thing that's probably the most challenging is creating a plan that is challenging to the offense and pres- ents obstacles, presents issues, handles what they can give you, but is simple to your kids. That, to me, is coaching the mentality, having your players ready, and having a plan that appears to be complicated to an offense... but has everything you need to defend what you see that day, everything in your toolbox that your players can understand. It's not about what we can sit in here as coaches and draw up. It's about what they can do on Saturday in front of 107,000, what they're comfortable play- ing, what they will play well. And the more things that you have, the better you'll be. You have to tie concepts to- gether. You can't have a thousand differ- ent things you ask kids to learn and be good at. You've got to have a small menu of items that you ask each position to master. When you do that, OK, now we want to do a few different things this week that we can pull from that menu. BWI Where are you in that process? PRY I think we're about where I had hoped we would be. We're obviously not home yet. We're in what I consider phase three of four phases. Winter is phase one: those mornings and the toughness, the training and the commit- ment and the camaraderie in strength building. Phase two is the spring: going out and putting our plan into action, growing our players fundamentally, al- lowing them to grow into their positions and have a better understanding of their positions and what's necessary to be good at that spot. Finding out who the playmakers are, guys like Kevin Givens who going into the spring you wouldn't have thought [would emerge so quickly]. Phase three is the summer: what Coach [Dwight] Galt and his staff do, the train- ing, the agility, the speed improvement, fine-tuning techniques out there. And then your last phase is camp. Preseason camp is where you tie it all together and now you've got to be where you want to be going into that first week. BWI Are you often surprised by what happens in phase four after what you saw in phase two? PRY No, because we're around them enough, and you have a pretty good idea of the summer they're having. You want to know going into preseason camp where guys are to help shape your plan P R E V I E W >> LETTERMEN RETURNING 21 DE Torrence Brown, Evan Schwan, Garrett Sickels DT Curtis Cothran, Parker Cothren, Antoine White LB Brandon Bell, Many Bowen, Jason Cabinda, Jake Cooper, Nyeem Wartman-White (lettered in 2014), Von Walker CB Christian Campbell, Grant Haley, Amani Oruwariye, John Reid SAF Marcus Allen, Troy Apke, Koa Farmer, Malik Golden, Nick Scott LETTERMEN LOST 9 DE Carl Nassib DT Tarow Barney, Austin Johnson, Anthony Zettel LB Jordan Dudas, Troy Reeder, Gary Wooten Jr. CB Trevor Williams SAF Jordan Lucas STARTERS RETURNING 5 >> Garrett Sickels (12 starts in 2015), Brandon Bell (11), Jason Cabinda (13), Grant Haley (11), Marcus Allen (12) OTHERS WITH STARTING EXPERIENCE 8 >> Nyeem Wartman-White (21 career starts), Malik Golden (4), Von Walker (3), John Reid (2), Troy Apke (1), Christian Campbell (1), Jake Cooper (1), Nick Scott (1) STARTERS LOST 6 >> Carl Nassib (13), Anthony Zettel (13), Austin Johnson (13), Troy Reeder (11), Jordan Lucas (9), Trevor Williams (13) 2015 STATISTICS POINTS/GAME 21.8 (7th Big Ten; T-26th FBS) YDS/GAME 324.5 (5th; 14th) RUSHING YDS/GAME 151.0 (8th; 43rd) PASSING YDS/GAME 173.5 (3rd; 8th) PASS-EFFICIENCY 115.2 (8th; 29th) FIRST DOWNS/GAME 18.0 (6th; T-25th) 3RD-DOWN CONVERSION PCT. 36.5 (9th; 46th)