After a weekend off, Penn State is back at it preparing for the Golden Gophers. Your highlights. (Transcript here)
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Eric Latimore could be out for the rest of the season with his wrist injury. Jack Crawford has yet to return to action yet, either, but could be back for next week against Michigan.
- Does not plan to use D'Anton Lynn at safety in the wake of the Nick Sukay injury.
- On former Minnesota coach Tim Brewster's termination: "I'm sorry to see it. I liked Tim. He's an easy guy to be around, an out-going guy. I worried a little bit about him in the sense that he built up expectations for the Minnesota people, and I think he underestimated just how long it was going to take. It takes a while to get a team together and probably more so this year than any other year because the Big Ten is tougher this year than it's been. It's really gotten tough."
- Blamed himself for what he felt was a lack of enthusiasm in Penn State's loss to Illinois.
- With a lot of time off over the bye week, Paterno hopes that translates to greater enthusiasm.
- Doesn't intend to worry about how Minnesota might react to its coaching change this week.
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Michael Mauti, Bani Gbadyu and Gerald Hodges should all be ready to play against Minnesota.
- Declined to call Minnesota a must win game.
Does not intend to make many personnel changes against the Gophers.
Talked to Rutgers coach Greg Schiano this week about the Adam Taliaferro situation in 2000 in the wake of Eric LeGrand's injury.
Declined to talk about the Sean Stanley situation.
On his assistants: "The assistants are great. They are doing a great job." Pressed about "reported" in-fighting: "Oh, no. For crying out we have been together. No. Don't imagine things, all right?"
On Minnesota's offense: "Oh, I think they are dangerous. I think they have a fine line. The Purdue game is a little misleading. I think you're right. I think that they do some things very well. We'll have to...their backs are tough. They run tough. They have a good scheme. They don't make a lot of mistakes. They don't put the ball on the ground carelessly."
The Chaz-Powell-to-defense move was made because Chaz wasn't happy with his playing time on offense, so Paterno allowed the switch.
On Robert Bolden: "But I think he's getting at that stage where now he's a guy that's got to make some plays, too. I mean, I think we can say, okay, but he's not ...he's playing football now that he's got to start making some things happen. Hopefully he will. But I think he's done about as well as you can expect the kid"
On the Sports Illustrated agent story: "Now, that doesn't mean that I can keep them from going into the dormitory, or, you know, meeting them someplace. And I'm not naïve to think that we haven't had some kids maybe talk to agents or maybe even do some things that he shouldn't have done. I'm not pointing the finger at anybody. But it's a tough...I think it's something that we have got to address, college coaches, and it's getting right down to the high school kids right now. There are some high school kids that these agents are fooling around with already."
