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does a great job with our offensive line. We've got a bunch of really good players at that position who are continuing to de- velop. We're going to stick to our plan. We're going to [focus on] fundamentals during practices and continue to empha- size them. We're going to get great one- on-one work against our defensive line that helps from a speed perspective. We're going to still call the game in ways that put those guys in the best position to be successful. But we're going to have a challenge this week. The way they play defensive foot- ball, we're going to have some challenges. That's where the mobility at the quarter- back position is important. That's where staying patient in the run game is impor- tant. That's where getting the ball out of the quarterback's hand is important. We also have to take some shots down the field. I get that. That also means holding onto the ball a little bit longer. We're just going to stick to our plan and keep developing those guys and keep lov- ing them. I've got a lot of confidence in them. I think we're going to play well on Saturday, I really do. Kirk Herbstreit in an interview with Saquon Barkley said he's always been impressed with Penn State players' comportment, their behavior. He men- tioned going way back decades to Curt Warner, guys like that. What is your re- action to those comments? Is there any explanation you can see? Some of it goes back before your time. I think it's a combination of things. It starts with the young men who we bring to our university. Don't get me wrong, our guys make mistakes. They're young men. No different than any other college stu- dent across the country. It starts there. Then it starts with the development. I think a lot of colleges spend time trying to develop and work on the complete stu- dent, the whole young man, the whole student-athlete who you're trying to de- velop, who we all take great pride in. I will also say that I think a lot of places and a lot of people maybe give it a little bit of lip service. At the end of the day, it re- ally comes down to the wins. I really think it's a part of this community that we take a lot of pride in it. We reinforce it and talk about it all the time. I can't tell you how many times I'll be standing in line at Star- bucks or Rothrock, a Dunkin Donuts on Sunday, someone will come up to me and say, Coach, really appreciate the win on Saturday, but more importantly I appreci- ate how the guys were in the press confer- ence, how the guys treated my son when they saw him this summer, my daughter, all those types of things. In this crazy game of college football that we've all decided to be a part of, probably now more so than ever, you know, it has become about the wins and the wins only. I think in some ways, Happy Valley and Penn State has had a little bit of a bubble over it. It's more than that for us. It's more than that for our fans. It's more than that for our students. I'll tell you, three or four years ago, in my timeline it didn't necessarily feel like that. But it's more than that here, it really is. I think what we also try to do is when I get an email from a fan, from an alumni, a handwritten message from somebody, I put that in a PowerPoint presentation. We talk about small acts of kindness that go a long ways. Simple home training: yes, sir, no, sir, shaking someone's hand, looking them in the eye, body language, de- meanor. Those things are so, so impor- tant. I take a lot of pride in it. It was already something that I believed in. Had really nothing to do with Penn State. Then I come to Penn State and get offered a job. My values and the things that I believe in align with the university and the athletic department, the football program. It just continues. I think probably the biggest thing is when our fans and when the people in the community, when little kids, when other people say to our players and say to our coaches that winning matters here and we get it, but what's more important to us is that these young men leave Penn State prepared and ready for life, are going to be good people, good fathers, good hus- bands, citizens. It's one thing when the head football coach says it. It's another thing when the fans and the alumni and the lettermen are saying it. It reinforces it. I think that's probably where it probably comes from. I think Kirk Herbstreit is a graduate of another school in this confer- ence, has been doing this for a long time, travels all over the country. I think him saying it to me, there's a lot of value in that. Kirk didn't have to say that. I talk about studying best practice. There's nobody who has got a better per- spective on college football than Kirk Herbstreit because he travels all over the country seeing it. The fact that he comes out and makes a strong statement like that about our players and our program is one of the best compliments I think we could get. You've talked about being patient in the running game against Michigan. What does patience look like to you? Well, I guess what I'm saying is even though we're an RPO team, it's easy to just start calling more passes. You've got to keep calling the RPOs that give us an option to run the ball and put us in the best situation. Joe [Moorhead] does a great job with that, so does Matt [Limegrover] and Coach [Charles] Huff as well, sticking with those things. Again, we may call 12 RPOs in a row, and they all end up passes. Again, that's fine. I think what Saquon has shown is he doesn't need many touches or opportuni- ties to make the big play. You're probably never going to look at the stat page on Sunday and Saquon has carried 38 times for 250 yards. That's just not how we're built. The area I would say that we've spent a lot of time talking about is eliminating the negative-yardage plays. If we just eliminate those, the plays where we get tackled behind of line of scrimmage and things like that, whether that's a block getting beat, whether them doing a great job of disguising what they're doing, that will really help us. The sacks, the nega- tive-yardage plays – if we can just reduce them a little bit, I think that will help us, will keep us on schedule from a first- down perspective, and it will extend drives. You know, I'm constantly looking at the analytics, and I think there's a stat that [shows] if you get a sack during a drive, you only have a 10 percent chance of scor- ing. That's for your defense and that's for your offense. Probably a very similar stat when you get a tackle-for-loss for five yards or more, things like that. It's important for a lot of different rea- sons. It's important for putting Saquon in situations to be successful. It's important for us to stay on schedule, to be in better third-down situations and convert. Typi- cally, if we can get a drive going, get some explosive plays, which we do as good as anybody in the country, we've got a O C T O B E R 1 8 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 13

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