Blue White Illustrated

Michigan Pregame

Penn State Sports Magazine

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and second down, which is the com- plete opposite of us. If you look, again, with analytics and things like that, re- ally, your first downs should not come on third down. They should come on first and second down. We're doing a much better job of that. We've im- proved dramatically in that area. Now, the next phase is obviously to be better on third down. We need to do a better job of that. We've also been pretty good on fourth down. So that's an area of emphasis for us. That's a focus point for us, getting to manage- able third downs when we don't pick up a first down on first or second down. We've still got to get into a manageable third-down situation, be more efficient. That's a focus point for us. But I think, really, first and second down kind of tells the story for both teams. Tells the story for their defense. Tells the story for our offense. It seems there's a trend in football where guys are about to cross the goal line and they drop the ball as a cele- bratory thing or something. Your guys don't do that, and I wonder what you would do if one of your guys did that? And what is your gen- eral approach to the idea of a celebra- tion that might hurt the team? Yeah, you don't want to do anything that hurts the team. We look at those things as selfish things. You should be celebrating with your teammates. I think you guys probably see me throughout the game talking to players, not screaming at players, but talking with players when maybe I feel like they're bringing a little too much atten- tion to themselves and not with their teammates. And that's somewhat com- mon in today's day and age. I'm just talking to our guys about celebrating with their teammates. The other thing is, when I see exam- ples like that, as you've heard me say before, we show it to them. It's funny that you bring that up, because we showed it in the team meeting today. One of the examples that you're talking about, I don't know if everybody who is here today or listening saw South Carolina State vs. Clemson. That's an- other example. [The South Carolina State returner] caught the kickoff in the end zone, flipped it to the official, and just ran out and thought the play was over, and the play wasn't over. Clemson ran down and recovered the ball in the end zone for the touchdown. You see the official kind of back away like, "Don't give it to me." But the whistle hadn't been blown and he didn't take a knee. You have guys like you're talking about who, just when they're about to cross the end zone, they relax and drop the ball. Now that we have cameras right on the goal line, that makes it even easier to see some of those things. I think it's probably happened more oAen than in years past, but the technology maybe didn't show it. So whenever guys make mistakes that can have a negative impact on [their] team, or guys do things that maybe are embarrassing to themselves or negative toward themselves, we try to show them examples of that so maybe we can learn from other people's mistakes and not have to make them ourselves. We're constantly showing them. So we're constantly trying to use ex- amples like that within the Big Ten, na- tionally and even in the NFL to teach football lessons and teach life lessons. Saquon Barkley told us last week a5er the Pitt game, a5er his fumble, he stayed awake just watching that play over and over again. I'm curious, how much of a perfectionist is Saquon and how does that spill over to the field? I think most of our guys are like that. They want to do really well to help the team. They also understand if they make a mistake, it doesn't just impact them. It impacts their teammates. And they want to do well. So if you make a mistake in the game and do something that you would like to do better in the future, you study that. You study the tape. You study what you did, you study the scheme. You study the fundamentals and techniques of what you did and what you can learn from that situation. That's what life is about. It's about going through some difficult situations or being put into a situation where you're challenged and then how are you going to learn from that challenge and grow from that chal- lenge? The hard part in the business world, the hard part in life, the hard part in school, the hard part in coaching, is when guys don't learn from their mis- takes. So the fact that he went back and watched that play over and over again or is replaying that play in his head over and over again, I think that's fine. As long as, like most things, it doesn't go to an extreme. He learns from it, he makes the corrections and moves forward, and that's what we have to help him do. S E P T E M B E R 2 1 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 13 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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