clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Joe Paterno Press Conference - 9/12/06

By BSD

Here are some bits and pieces from Paterno's weekly press conference.

Although he was disappointed in the scoreboard, Joe thinks they did an ok job and will be a better football team.

We are pretty good. We didn't learn how to win a big game. I think that comes a little bit with experience. I think we have a quarterback and a good, solid football team. We made too many mistakes. You can't turn the ball over that many times. The little things that you look at...we never had any better field position to start the ball with than our own 30 and we gave it to Notre Dame. Notre Dame had the ball on the 46 yard line and so forth and gave them a fourth down (fake) punt. You have to give them credit for making that play. They picked up a fumble and ran it for a touchdown and that kind of thing. We didn't get a turnover. Overall, we hung in there. We had a good practice yesterday. I think we are alright, but we still have to learn how to win a big game on the road.

Joe likes sophomore Daryll Clark, but Morelli is the quarterback no questions asked.


Joe says the offensive line is coming along nicely.

I thought the offensive line did a better job. They were a little bit more familiar with the defensive scheme that Notre Dame had as opposed to what we had seen in Akron. Whether we have improved enough for us to feel good about it, I am not sure about that. I think we got better.

Despite two botched fieldgoals in the first two games, Joe isn't worried yet.

The snaps were not perfect, but, I think, certainly able to be handled. Obviously, we've had three bad plays on three attempts in two games. I think we are practicing enough. I think we are doing the things that we have always done. Sometimes, you just have to be careful you don't overreact. I think we will be OK, but there is no question that didn't hurt us against Akron because we were ahead most of the time. Obviously, a field goal early in that football game against Notre Dame would have maybe put a little more pressure on them, who knows, but we didn't do it. Yes, we are looking at that, but I am not going to overreact to it.

I have to agree here in let's not panic. I'm not sure if Alford did the long snapping last year, but Ganter was the holder and I don't recall these problems last year. Akron we can chalk up to the crappy weather and a wet ball. At Notre Dame the snap was a bit high. I'm willing to wait a week and see how it goes. I'm sure this is something they can fix in time for Ohio State.

No JoePa presser would be complete without insulting another reporter.

Reporter: Are the mistakes Anthony Morelli made (all) part of the maturing process?

Joe: When you get aggressive, yeah he made a fumble. Are they correctable? Sure, they are correctable. That is a stupid question to be honest with you.

Being the class act he is, Joe took full responsibility for allowing the fake punt against the Irish. He's always there to take the heat off his players and assistants.

Rodney Kinlaw is now the #2 running back. Austin Scott will most likely be redshirting.


Terrell Golden is injured and most likely will not play this weekend.


Evan Royster did not travel with the team as he is still banged up with his shoulder. Most likely this kid is going to redshirt I think unless they get really thin at runningback.

Patrick Hall is still in the doghouse. No idea what he did to get there.


Overall Joe seems to think the team is bouncing back pretty well from the loss. That's the mark of a team with good senior leadership from the captains.

I thought we had a good meeting and I tried to explain some things to them. I think they went out there and their tails weren't dragging or anything like that. They went out there and tried to get something out of practice. I think today will be more of an indication as to whether we understand what has to be done. We will practice a little tougher today.

By the way, I just want to point out what a great job Penn State does of putting the transcript of Joe's pressers together. It isn't easy considering Joe slurs his speech and can barely be understood at times. This is a great tool for bloggers like me. Last week I tried to read some of the transcripts from Charlie Weis' press conference and I have to wade through garbage like this. Half of the questions are replaced with (inaudible). It's all terrible punctuation and half of it doesn't make any sense. I didn't even know we had a player named Ken Walsh, but apparently Weis was concerned he was going to be a factor at runningback on Saturday. I was going to do a review of Jabba the Hut's press conference last week but I deemed it too poor a production to link to and jeopardize tainting the reputation of this fine blog we've all come to know and love as Black Shoe Diaries.

More From Black Shoe Diaries