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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 Saquon Barkley had 43 touches in a game against Iowa that had no margin for error. How do you balance what the team needs from him and how his workload might affect him? It's funny, early in the season I was get- ting grief because he didn't touch the ball enough. And now he touches it 43 times. So I want to balance that, want to balance not only the amount of touches he gets but also the follow-up questions I get aBer the game Saturday night or Tuesday press conference. I think we all know he's a special player. How we handle him during camp, how we handle him in practice during the week, how we use him during the season – I think we all see he is a special, special tal- ent and an impactful player in so many different ways, more so than I have ever been around. Can't imagine there's a bet- ter player in all of college football. Saquon is a guy who is very, very honest with us, so if he needs a break, he'll tap. And we have a lot of confidence in Andre [Robinson] and Miles [Sanders] going in there and getting the job done when they do. The run that Miles had on Saturday, I thought was excellent. You know, Andre has been as productive as anybody. Right now, we've got a special player and we're going to use him, and when he feels like he needs a blow, then we'll tap the helmet. I do know when he taps his helmet and he comes out and he's getting some water, and we have a stoppage of play, Joe [Moorhead] looks over and goes, "Saquon, you ready? Saquon, Saquon, you ready?" Third time, "Saquon, are you ready to get back in there?" So yeah, I think obviously there's a confidence from our team and the coaching staff with knowing that every time Saquon touches the ball, something really special can hap- pen. I think our fans realize that and the media realize that and our players realize that. Using him as a kickoff returner and… as a runner and as a receiver, I think has been really important, because there are so many different ways that he can hurt you. I think where our balance is really going to come… is in how we're handling him during the week to make sure that he's re- covered. He's a very intelligent player and he's also a very focused player. He's a guy who at practice can [miss] a rep, and he's standing right behind the running back in his stance, going through his footwork, his eyes and his reads and all those types of things. So he's a guy who you can hold out, and get him as recovered as you pos- sibly can and he's still going to get a lot of value out of the practice. It's just [a mat- ter of] managing all those things. You've mentioned Juwan Johnson a lot since last spring. How is he a differ- ent receiver from this time last year, and what's the next developmental stage for him? I think the biggest thing with Juwan is confidence and experience. He's gained those things over the past couple years here at Penn State. Obviously, you go from high school, being the man. He was very highly recruited and played in some national All-Star games, all those types of things. But you get here and some things that you were able to do in high school don't work at this level. He's worked re- ally hard. He's a guy who takes a lot of pride in working on his craB, on the JUGS machine, on running routes, on going and working out with his brother when his brother was in Tampa Bay training. He's just one of those guys. You walk through the weight room and he's in there getting extra work. You look out there on the field, he's getting extra work. He's with Trace [McSorley] watching film. He's just a guy who really matured and really showed up on campus very mature but has grown in so many ways in under- standing what he has to do to be success- ful at this level. He's always had really good ball skills but could be inconsistent at times, and he's really worked on that. Now he's like a vacuum – anything that comes in his range. Especially with his length, how tall he is, how well he can jump and then his arm length, he's going to come down with any ball that's near him. He's just one of those types of guys. I think the quarterbacks have a lot of confidence in him, and probably an area that goes unnoticed is when you've got a 6-4, 225-pound wide receiver, he's having a major factor on Saquon and the other running backs' production on the perimeter running game. I think the aver- age corner is around 5-10, probably 180 pounds, and you've got a guy who is 6-4 and 225 pounds engulfing him. That cre- ates a great situation for YAC yards, ex- plosive plays, things like that. You've worked with Brent Pry for a while now and known him even longer. In that time, what has stood out most about his coaching style, and how has your relationship grown over the past couple of years? I'm a huge Brent Pry guy. I'm a huge Jim Pry guy, his father. I'll tell you a funny story: Brent told me that his mom thought that Keegan-[Michael Key] was me [in a comedy bit that appeared on "College GameDay" last week]. And I've known her for 35 years. But I love Brent Pry. I'm a huge fan of Brent Pry as a per- son, as a father, as an educator. I sit in the defensive meetings when he addresses the defense and [he has] tremendous leadership and passion for what we do and how we do it. He's a guy who really understands the X's and O's and the schemes and how important they are but also the motivation and the devel- opment that also is such an important part of our jobs. He does a great job with his staff, with the defensive staff. There's so much respect for one another and dif- ferent opinions and perspectives and ex- periences in there. I think I said early on to you guys: He grew up in a family of coaches and his dad is a very, very good coach. And he learned more ball that he didn't even know he was learning, just in conversations at dinner, over conversations in the summer. Just he's a tremendous ball coach, and more importantly, a better friend and tremen- dous husband and a tremendous father. I'm a huge fan and I'm fiercely loyal to Brent, and Brent has been fiercely loyal to me. To me, that's really important. Most of the offensive linemen are back from last year. Are they playing at the level you think they should be a4er four games? I think Trace had six balls knocked down on Saturday, was sacked four times. S E P T E M B E R 2 7 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 12

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