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What's the biggest improvement in Mike Gesicki's overall game from last year to now, and how would you grade his end zone celebration leap over Trace McSorley? You know, I didn't see it, actually. I saw the pictures. It doesn't shock me. I mean, I think we all know that Mike can jump out of the stadium. He was a high-level volleyball player, high-level basketball player. Every time we have a dunk contest on the football team, he wins it. I think that one of his special qualities is how well he can jump and go aBer the ball in the air or jump over things like human be- ings, like Trace. So, yeah, I'm pleased with Mike. He is has I think improved in a lot of areas, especially in his blocking. My discussions were very similar [to those with] with Marcus, my sit-down discussion with Mike about areas that he needed to improve. From our team per- spective, we need Mike to continue to be a difference-maker for us in the passing game. For Mike's individual future, which we do talk about in the off-season, there's not a whole lot more he needs to prove as a receiver; it's as a blocker. That's the area where he needs to grow and where he has grown dramatically – to show people that he can be an every-down tight end and be a major factor in the run game as well as the pass game. He's taken that very seri- ously and he's worked really hard on it. I think if you look at us right now and our running game – our perimeter block- ing with the tight ends as well as with the receivers – I think it's probably one of our most improved areas. Our wide receiver and tight end perimeter blocking, as well as our tight ends mixing it up inside, is vastly improved, and we need to continue investing in those areas. The program has been getting a lot of media attention lately, and I think probably most of us saw you on "Mon- day Night Football" last night. I'm wondering if you are now having to manage your time and learn to say no in a way that maybe you haven't had to before because of all of the requests for your time and attention. I want to thank Kris [Petersen, Penn State's football media contact] because Kris does a great job with that, she's the bad person who has to tell people no. Ob- viously it's magnified right now, but we stick to the same model, so we try to grant a certain amount of local requests because the local beat writers and media people who cover us day-in and day-out, we feel like those people deserve the most access. And then we also try to do some things nationally, because we also understand the importance of getting our brand and our university and our football program out nationally, so we try to do those things as well. And what Kris has done a good job for me and for the players is try- ing to limit the impact that it has on our normal day. I know most people don't like it with me, but we have a staff meeting every morning at 7 a.m. so I'm not going to do anything aBer 7 a.m. So most of my inter- view stuff I'm doing before 7 a.m., before the staff meeting. So 6 o'clock, 6:20, 6:40 or whatever it may be, and then we'll also do some stuff typically late at night. So basically Kris does her best in trying to protect my day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. I know we've got somebody in the room who's looking at me right now who I'm going to meet with tomorrow, and it's at the crack of dawn. But that's why. It's be- cause as a head coach, if you're not care- ful, and it's already an issue, you're just constantly getting pulled out of the meet- ing room. You're trying to sit in with the defense and you get pulled out five times. You're trying to sit with the offense and you get pulled out 10 times. And some of them you can't control. Player issues, you know, you've got to deal with that. So Kris does a great job, and then obviously we're trying to manage Saquon to make sure that he's able to handle his academics and handle his football and then be able to in- teract a little bit. Kris does a great job of balancing that and helping us manage it. For the most part, we're on the same page with how we want to do it. Ohio State is coming off of a bye. Is it reasonable to expect them to add new wrinkles? And what were the advan- tages that you had coming off of a bye against Michigan? How much can that help when you're going into a big game? I think it helps a lot, there's no doubt about it. You just have more time for everything. More time to recover, more time to get healthy, more time to watch film and plan. It's valuable. Probably the most valuable thing we have on this earth is time, and a bye week creates that. So yeah, it helped us last week, and it's going to help them this week, there's no doubt about it. But we control the things that we can control, and this isn't one of them. We got our normal week of preparation, which I feel good about it. I do think we handled our bye week good enough that we are still getting some residual affects two weeks later from how we handled the bye week two weeks ago. I also think the way the game played out last week, we were able to get some backups in the game and things like that. It helped that it wasn't like Iowa, where it was this emotionally and physically draining game all the way up until the last second. So I think that there's value in that as well. We're going to maximize this week and get to the hotel and get a little bit more rest and then get ready to play the game. You mentioned Iowa. How much can you draw on the experience of having already gone into a hostile environ- ment and won a close game? Kinnick [Stadium] is one of the better venues I've been in. They are right on top of you, they are wild. I know obviously that Ohio State is going to be the same way. So I do think that there's value in that. We have been on the road in a tough environment – not only [at some point] in these guys' careers, but this season. I think we all know it's tough to do. It's tough to come and play at Penn State. It's tough to go on the road and play at Ohio State. But that's the situation we're in, and I want our guys to embrace it. I'm going to try to make practice as dif- ficult as I possibly can. Typically, we do light music on Tuesday, because there's still a lot of teaching going on on Tuesday from a game plan perspective, and then Wednesday it's full-throttle, piercing eardrums, headaches for the coaches at the end of practice. It's not a whole lot of fun, to be honest with you. I've actually been talking to [the support staff about] turning the treble down, because it just pierces your ear out there. But we're going to do it starting today Tuesday, Wednes- day. We're going to do it all week long to make it as difficult as we possibly can make it. We went out and bought one of those decibel meters for practices and for games so we can literally replicate the type of music that's played in the stadium – crowd noise, chants, songs, how loud it O C T O B E R 2 5 , 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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