Blue White Illustrated

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 How have you seen the leadership on your team develop as the season has gone on? What have you noticed since camp or Michigan or Ohio State? A couple of things. Obviously, with us not having a big senior class, having one of the younger teams in college football, we rely on those seniors and we rely on the staff. But aBer that, we're fortunate because we have some young players who are really, really good leaders for us. That's important. That's helpful. I think John Reid is a guy like that. I think Saquon Barkley is a guy like that. I think Trace [McSorley] is a guy like that. I think [Jason] Cabinda is a guy like that. I could probably list 10, 12 guys. We have a number of young players who have significant leadership roles on our team, and we need that. I think I saw one of the teams in the Big Ten is honoring like 44 seniors on senior day. We just don't have that. But it's also important, even the years you do have big senior classes like that, that you have strong leadership in your jun- ior, sophomore and freshman classes. We've been forced to do that, almost like our situation in terms of creating depth. What we went through at line- backer… in the short term it wasn't a whole lot of fun, but in the long term it's helped us because we have pretty good depth at that position. Same as what we're going through in the O-line. In the long run, it's going to help us. I would say the same thing from a leadership perspective. We were forced to develop leadership through the younger players on our roster. In the long run, I think that's going to help us. Could you elaborate on Parker Cothren's value to your team and de- fense? You mentioned him as being honored as one of the players of the week against Rutgers. He's the [kind of] guy who is essential to every team, is essential to every or- ganization, corporation. He's the guy who is going to do 90 percent of the dirty work that most people don't see. He's in there holding his gap. He's in there taking up double teams. He's going to make some plays, as well, some tackles, tackles for loss, sacks, things like that. Those guys are just so valu- able, those defensive tackles, especially the nose, who has a tough job. Typically the nose is going to be double-teamed, twice as much as a three-technique will be. He just has been really, really good. His leadership, as well, with some of the younger guys like Robert Windsor [and Tyrell] Chavis, [who] isn't a young guy, but a new guy to the program. He's been very mature. Has a great mom, dad, sis- ter. They come to almost every single game from Alabama. He's a special guy. Obviously, I think you guys know we've known him for a long time. We recruited him when we were at Vander- bilt. I remember going and watching him play basketball in high school. He's done a great job for us. Michigan State the last couple of weeks done some pretty good things. How do you handle a team that, for lack of a better word, is unpredictable coming into your last home game? I think they're very predictable. What you do is you look at trends, no different than any other industry. In the last two games they've played really well. They played the Michigan State style of foot- ball we've all seen over the last number of years. Obviously, how they were playing in the beginning of the season compared to how they're playing now is different. There's no doubt about it. You watch the last two games, they put up a bunch of points, shut a team out two and a half weeks ago. Last week they took the No. 2 team in the country to the wire and lost by one. We know what to expect. We're going to have a team coming in here that's going to play with a tremendous amount of pride, passion. They're well- coached, talented. They've recruited well there. They've always been a good staff in developing talent. In the last couple years they've recruited at a very high level. They're talented. We are going to respect our opponent week in and week out. We're going to focus on Penn State. We're going to pre- pare like crazy all week long. We're going to need that stadium jumping on Saturday, once again, so we can all sup- port one another and do everything we possibly can to find a way to get a posi- tive result on Saturday. Michigan State's run game has pro- duced over 200 yards in four of their past five games. How do you shut that off? They've always been great up front. I think that's kind of how that program has been built, with the D-line, with the O-line. I think the thing that's different right now is the running back [L.J. Scott]. He was a great player last year. I think they were getting that offensive line to kind of grow and mature early on this season. Right now he is running, and running hard. They do a lot of stuff in terms of the run game, then play-action pass, a lot of misdirection stuff with fake re- verses, fake fly sweeps to try to cause some indecision in the linebacker unit. I think that's the biggest thing, is your D-line is going to have to challenge their O-line at the point of attack? We can't get knocked back; we got knocked back last year. Then we've got to be able to get the running back on the ground. He's a big, strong back who can make you miss. Evan Schwan said probably the most emotional person during senior day ceremonies will be you. How do you plan to scale it back once the game starts, seeing them in the locker room even before the game? It's probably the same way I am with a lot of my emotions. My wife does not get angry very easy, but once she does, then she's done with you forever. Me, I'll get mad, I'll get it off my chest, then the next day I'm fine with it. I've moved on. I'm probably kind of the same way emotionally. I'm going to have a hard time on Satur- day with these guys. I typically try to N O V E M B E R 2 3 , 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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