Blue White Illustrated

Under Pry's leadership, defense holds steady C O A C H S P E A K N o assistant coach on James Franklin's staff has faced more challenges this season than Brent Pry. In his first year as Penn State's defensive co- ordinator, Pry lost his three starting line- backers to injury be- fore the Big Ten season had even begun. The defense kept battling, though, and has made progress as two of those in- jured players – Jason Cabinda and Bran- don Bell – have healed up and are back in action. Pry recently took the time to talk to reporters about Penn State's progress this season. ON REBOUNDING FROM THE LOSS TO MICHIGAN To me, the expectations are the same. It doesn't matter who's out there. You can say that or you can live that, and we live that, particularly in my room where the injuries were mounting up. Jan Johnson didn't feel any less ac- countable than Jason Cabinda. Brandon Smith didn't feel any less accountable than Nyeem Wartman-White. Those guys felt like everybody was counting on them and it was their responsibility to prepare each week. We had a third-team Mike [linebacker] against Michigan who gets thrown out on a targeting call, and then his backup, Jan Johnson, the fourth-team guy, comes in and plays pretty good and gets injured in the sec- ond quarter. … I think the guys have to adapt and adjust, but it does come to a certain point where you think, all right now we have to really dumb it down be- cause we have some guys who are play- ing out of position and haven't had any practice at it. ON HIS PROUDEST MOMENT I think fighting through adversity. There was a lot on these guys. You come out of Pitt and you rebound and play pretty good against Temple and you feel better about things. You know you have your hands full going on the road at Michigan and you have a couple of injuries that hurt you. You have a couple of busts early in the game, you have a missed sack opportunity, you have a sudden change. Things kind of mounted up, and we cut through all of that and came back after the game and said, "Look, this is where we're at with this thing. We can be this type of defense and we can be very good and here's why. Here are the positives that we did against Temple, here are the positives we had against Kent State, here are the positive things we did against Michigan and Pitt. Here's why we didn't play so well against Michigan and Pitt, here are the things that happened. It's not about who's out there, it's about us and what we did as coaches or players and where we can be better. Let's learn from that and put it away and let's be better for it." I think that's what we were able to do. ON NYEEM WARTMAN-WHITE'S FUTURE IN FOOTBALL I'm never going to say never. I don't know the answer to that totally. I'd say it looks doubtful. Nyeem is looking to the future. His attitude has been outstanding. I don't know if I could handle it the same way. He comes in with a big smile and he's coaching these guys up and he's an inspiration to every- body. … Nyeem has a bright future, whether it's in football or coaching or something outside of athletics. He is an outstanding young man and we're going to be with him every step of the way. ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH FRANKLIN There is mutual respect, and I think it has never waned. He has had the utmost confidence. We're very likeminded, so when something's not right, generally we're on the same page with it. We rec- ognize and ID things from the same van- tage point. ... I certainly trust him, and he trusts me. He is the leader, and we go the way he goes, I believe. We couldn't have worked through the adversity we did [otherwise]. That starts at the top and that's kind of how we've built this program and one of the reasons why I love working with him. We're going to approach things the right way with these kids with the game, our preparation, our off-season, and I believe in how we do things and I think we both stick to that when tough times happen. ■ BRENT PRY

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