Bill O'Brien's Big Ten Coaches Teleconference

Coming off of a four overtime win against Michigan, Coach O’Brien said the most important thing for this bye week is to get healthy for Ohio State: "Yesterday what we did is we went out there and had a scrimmage with our younger guys. Tried to get some improvement there and then our older guys conditioned and that was about it for them. We’ll practice today, tomorrow and probably Thursday.  Four overtime game; it was a long football game. The biggest goal for us this week is to get healthy."

Practicing two-minute drills definitely paid off on Saturday: "We had no timeouts; we needed a touchdown to win," he said.  "We talk about the plays, the coverages that we expect. This is something I’m sure a lot of programs do. This isn’t unique to Penn State, but we practice the two-minute drill every single day…Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so we try to mix up the situations. Hopefully two or three times during the year those situations come up and our players have an idea how to react, and then they have to go out there and execute."

BO’B didn’t tell fans not to ask about Indiana on his radio show, because it’s a free country: I don’t know about that, I heard that too, and whether that happened or not, it didn’t happen when I was there. And I will tell you, any question anybody wants to ask me, they can ask me. I’m going to answer it however I feel like answering it. So I’m not sure if that happened; I’m not in charge of my radio show, but if that did happen, I’ll make sure that that doesn’t happen again. My thoughts on those things, it’s a free country, I’ve said that before and anyone can ask any question they want, and certainly I can answer it any way I want to. So, I apologize if that did happen, but I wasn’t there.

BO’B intended to rotate running backs, but Billy took off: [Akeel Lynch] is doing well. He practices hard, he’s a great kid, he’s a great teammate. I think in the last game we had an idea going in that we were going to rotate three backs, and then once we had Billy in there, we felt like Billy was doing some things really well, so we didn’t really want to take Billy out. That’s the decision that I made; that’s my decision. It’s not a reflection on Akeel Lynch. We think the world of Akeel Lynch, and we’ll continue to work him into the lineup.

BO’B understands the importance of starting fast: I mean, every time you come out you want to try to start fast. You’re not trying to start slow, so I think it’s important, and a lot of it has to do with the opening script on offense and defense. A lot of it is coaching; we’ve got to continue to find ways to move the ball down the field early or to stop people early. I think if we do that, our players understand the game plan then, we’ll start the games better and better as we move on.

BO’B loves Penn State, college ball, and the NFL: I really enjoy watching 18, 19, 20, 21-year old guys improve. I enjoy watching these guys get their degrees. I enjoy scenes like Saturday night, in Beaver Stadium with a 108,000 fans, and the student section. I enjoy the student body here at Penn State. Obviously I’ve said this time and time again, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the National Football League, always will. I have a lot of respect for college football and what it’s meant to me in my career and the people I’ve met because of both leagues. I just think the coaching aspect, here at the college level, is fun for me. I’ve enjoyed my 18 games here to this point.

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