Blue White Illustrated

there's one guy and one voice. Well, sometimes you need three, four, five voices. You need all hands on deck with special teams. So we're going to have a minimum of five coaches in- volved, and one coach specifically in charge of each unit but five coaches working those units." The good news for the Lions is that their special teams linchpin last year – Anthony Fera – is returning for his redshirt junior season. Fera did two jobs last year, and did them both quite well. He averaged 42 yards on punts and also turned one of Penn State's most glaring weaknesses – its erratic place-kicking – into one of its most re- liable strengths. Fera went 14 of 17 on field goals as a sophomore and was 3 of 6 from 40 yards and beyond. He could be headed for another big sea- son now that he'll be starting from the get-go. As for the return game, Brown has had his moments on punt returns, as evidenced by his 36-yard return against Houston in the TicketCity Now that he's fulfilled a longstanding ambition, John Butler turns his focus to PSU's secondary LIVING THE DREAM BY MATT HERB matt@bluewhiteonline.com sylvania native who grew up cheering on the Penn State foot- ball team, Butler sees nothing serendipitous about his appoint- ment as the Nittany Lions' new defensive backs coach. "It's not like I S won the lottery," he said. "I've worked very hard for this. To have a chance to coach at Penn State speaks for itself, and I think there's a line of hundreds and hundreds of coaches who would love to be in my position. I'm thankful and blessed to have it. I expect to make the most of it." Butler was on the road recruiting BUTLER when he got the call from Bill O'Brien inviting him to join the Nittany Lions' staff. He had just competed his first season as spe- cial teams coach at South Carolina after making previous stops at Harvard and Minnesota. Life was good in Columbia. He was working for Steve Spurrier and was part of the winningest season in Game- cocks history, an 11-2 finish that included a 30-13 romp over Ne- W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M ure, it's a dream job. But to John Butler, that's where the sentimental part ends. A Penn- braska in the Capital One Bowl. But after talking it over with his wife, Butler decided that the op- portunity to return to his home state was one he couldn't refuse. "Coach Spurrier is an unbeliev- able boss, an all-time Hall of Fame football coach," Butler said. "But I'm from here. I grew up in Penn- sylvania, and I know that Penn State is not only one of the best college jobs in the country, it might be one of the best football jobs in the country, better than a lot of pro jobs. With the resources this place has, with the opportuni- ty to recruit, the unbelievably rich tradition and history established by Coach Paterno and his former players and coaches, to me it was a no-brainer." Butler has a few Penn State con- nections, even though his only previous visit to University Park was for the Nittany Lions' 2009 Homecoming game, when he was an assistant on Minnesota's staff. He grew up in Montgomery Coun- ty just outside Philadelphia and followed the Lions closely. He was friends with the Conlin brothers – Chris, Keith and Kevin – all of whom played football at Penn State. Chris was an All-America offensive tackle on the Lions' 1986 national championship team, while Keith was a starting tackle on the undefeated 1994 team. Butler said he and the brothers practically wore out the Conlins' VCR watching their tape of Penn State's victory over Miami in the Fiesta Bowl. "This is not an exaggeration: I think we've watched that champi- onship game on VHS a hundred times," he said. "So I understand what it takes [to win] from watch- ing it and from coaching. You al- ways want your guys when you're coaching them to play like those guys at Penn State: tough, hard- nosed, physical, wear-you-out, compete-to-the-last-play." Those are the qualities he's looking to instill in players now that he's a member of the Nittany Lions' staff. Butler, who worked with defensive coordinator Ted Roof when both were at Minneso- ta, said the Lions are going to field an aggressive defense that will look to control the game's tempo. "Ted is not a guy who sits back in bend-but-don't-break [schemes]," he said. "We're going to be aggressive in everything we do. We're going to be aggressive in how we stop the run, aggressive in how we get after the quarterback, aggressive in how we deal with re- ceivers in the passing game. But it doesn't mean we're going to blitz all the time. Our approach is that hopefully we are not going to al- low the offense to dictate to us. That's what it's all about: who's going to dictate the momentum of the game. Are we going to be pas- sive and sit back and let them punch us in the face all game long? We're not going to be that way. We're going to be a group that's going to challenge the pass- ing game. We're going to get up in receivers' faces in man [coverage], we're going to get up in zone, we're going to reroute them, we're going to try to close windows and disguise and get into the quarter- back's head. Those are the ele- ments that you have to have to be good in pass coverage." In addition to his on-field coach- ing duties, Butler is going to be recruiting southeastern Pennsyl- vania for the Nittany Lions, focus- ing on an area that includes Mont- gomery and Lehigh counties and extends east to Lancaster. He also said he'll be recruiting parts of Ohio and will be involved in the recruitment of defensive backs no matter where they're from. A graduate of Catholic University in Washington, D.C., Butler said he's hopeful that Penn State's new coaches will be able to build on the tradition that Joe Paterno es- tablished, the one that he admired so much growing up. "We have every resource that we need to build a very, very success- ful football program, and we feel like we've got the right people to move it forward," he said. "With the combination of facilities, re- sources, staff and players, we've got to be able to get the job done." M A R C H 2 3 , 2 0 1 2 31 Bowl – which would have gone for 60 additional yards had he not grazed the sideline. Smith returned punts and kicks last year, but the Lions will need some help in the latter department with Powell and Green having gradu- ated. Amos will probably get a shot at one of the positions, while Belton and Alex Kenney may also get a look.

• Cover