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C O A C H S P E A K • E X C E R P T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ' S W E E K L Y P R E S S E R What's happening with your team at right tackle this week between Brendan Mahon and Chasz Wright, and who might factor into that posi- tion going into Indiana? Obviously, we ended the [Iowa] game with Paris and Chasz. Right now, that's about all the information I have. As you guys know, I don't get into a whole lot of these specifics anyway. Right now we've got Paris and we've got Chasz, and we're hoping to get some guys back. We'll see how the week plays out. And then we're also working on some other variables. I think I talked to you guys aAer the game about the conversation I had on the headset with Matt [Limegrover] about who is going into the game. If someone's helmet pops off, you're not going to burn Will Fries' red- shirt because someone's helmet popped off. You would put somebody in for one play. Connor McGovern obviously played a lot of tackle during spring ball. That was a big discussion that we had when the season started and he wasn't doing that anymore. [Ryan] Bates is a guy we're working out there a little bit, as well, to create some more depth. And then Fries. Fries is a guy who can factor in. We have a bunch of different plans, but right now obviously we have the situation with how the game ended. Can you discuss Paris Palmer's journey from North Carolina to Penn State? What impresses you most about it and how is he playing now? He's a really, really neat guy. We got a chance to recruit him out of Lack- awanna here in-state. I've known Coach [Mark] Duda for a really, really long time. Those relationships are im- portant. We were able to get involved with [Palmer]. He was highly regarded. Still a raw football player. We were able to get involved with him, and I'll never forget, myself and I think three other coaches, maybe four other coaches, were sitting at a Texas Roadhouse with his mom and Paris. It was essentially the home visit. And I don't know if you guys ever had those rolls with the maple butter, they were really good. I was hammering them rolls. Paris had on his phone something he had written letting us know that he was committing to us. And it was just so well-written and so thoughtful and so mature. He's got great perspective on a lot of things. So he's been a really big part of our program ever since he committed to us and ever since he arrived. Last year he was thrown in there and battled like crazy, you know. Then he doesn't start this year with the starting unit on the offensive line, and he handles that the right way. We lose Andrew Nelson and then Paris comes in and has played re- ally well. We're proud of him. He's bigger and stronger than he's ever been. He's more confident. He's doing really good in school. He's just going to be really suc- cessful. He did his share with our team Friday night at the hotel a few weeks ago and did a great job with that. He was very involved when we had a lot of discussions, when it comes to politics, we had a lot of discussions when it came to honoring the flag and the na- tional anthem. He's just a neat guy. He's what college athletics are all about, guys from all dif- ferent backgrounds coming and learn- ing from each other and learning from Penn State and this community. I'm re- ally proud of him and I'm obviously glad that he's playing well. Could I get your thoughts on Tommy Stevens' athleticism and his development this year? And given that he's averaging 10 yards a carry, is it ever tempting to try and expand his role? I know he's the backup and you need him in case anything happens to Trace, but he seems like a pretty unique talent. Well, two things. I've been telling you guys for a while how excited we are about Tommy and his future and how he's approached things. He's grown a lot from the skinny kid who showed up here as a mid-semester grad, tall and lanky with a big 'ole smile on his face. He was about 185 pounds at the time, and now he's 220, knocking on 225. He's confident, doing really well in school, got a great, supportive family. I think he's probably going to have 120 people at the game this week by getting tickets from all of his teammates. I think he had 70 a few weeks ago. He had, I think, 70 tickets for the Purdue game, so I would think this one would be even bigger. But the question about the package, you know, to be honest with you, it's not something that I'm comfortable dis- cussing right now, anyway. If that were a big part of our game plan moving for- ward, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to discuss it here. But he's a guy who we want to continue to get reps as a quarterback. He obviously has the abil- ity to make plays. He is our backup quarterback right now. He pushes Trace every single day at practice. But we've been working on those things for a while. Actually, last week I had kind of a panic attack. It's one of these calls that Kris [Petersen] gets; she loves it when I call her at 11:30. Somebody had posted a video of that exact play from practice. Someone had videotaped that exact play and had posted it online and then somebody had written a blog about it. So as you could imagine, that's some- thing that we were really excited about, that that was out. But yeah, we want to continue to get Tommy reps and experience and allow him to grow, but it's going to come within the framework of the offense. You mentioned guys doing their shares on Friday nights. And a lot of your players have said that's some- thing that's resonated with them, learning maybe surprising things about teammates. How long has that practice been part of your coaching career, and how big of a role do you think it can be in helping build chem- istry? I think it's really important. It's some- thing that we've always done since I've been a head coach. There are a lot of different things we do, and I don't know N O V E M B E R 9 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 12

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