Coach Paterno’s press conference
Penn State head coach Joe Paterno.
(AP Photo)
In between harassing motorists and his afternoon nap, Penn State head coach Joe Paterno spoke to the media, Tuesday afternoon.
Unlike Coach Tressel’s press conference, Paterno doesn’t have any opening statements and dives right into the reporter’s questions.
You have seen James Laurinaitis on film more than we have. What makes him so effective?
“He’s like a lot of our kids. Very much like (Dan) Connor and very much like (Sean) Lee. They’re smart, they can run, and they’re very aggressive.
He is a fine football player. He might be a little bigger than Connor and Lee. I don’t know him that well. He is very smart, very alert, a very aggressive football player and loves to play and can change directions and do all the things that you like to see in a linebacker.
In fact, you’ll see this week, this Saturday, you will probably see four or five of the best linebackers in the country on the field at the same time. I don’t mean at the same time….they will be there at one time or another.”
Coach, the last time Ohio State lost a regular season game was at your place in 2005. When you’re playing a No. 1 team in the country, does it add a little more excitement to the week leading up to the game?
“I think it does for the fans. You have to keep your team playing your game. If we’re good enough, we’re good enough. If we’re not good enough, we’re not good enough.
I don’t think you can go in there and say, “hey, that’s the number one team so now we have got to do this and we got to do that.” We’ve got to play the football we know how to play. And if somebody happens to be as good as Ohio State, you hope you can compete with them. Whether you can or you can’t, you never know until you play. But they’re a fine football team.
I had not realized the last time they lost a regular season was against us. I was not aware of that. I don’t particularly look back a lot of times. I can tell you right now they’re playing really well and Jim Tressel and his staff are doing a great job of coaching them.”
You and Jim Tressel have a little bit of a history even dating back to before Ohio State. But since he’s come to Ohio State, they’ve had amazing success. How would you explain that?
“He is a good coach and Ohio State has a great tradition and they have done a really good job recruiting. And Jim has got a fine staff. He has got another kid who works with him, Joey Daniels, who is a Western Pennsylvania kid who we’ve had a lot of association with who’s had some physical problems, but thank goodness he’s got those under control.
And the rest of them.. Jim is a good coach. He comes from a great coach. His father was a great coach. His father, Lee Tressel, was Coach of the Year one year when I was Coach of the Year. Lee was at Baldwin-Wallace. Jimmy knows how to coach, and he has good people around him and they are able to recruit good people.
Ohio State has great facilities and has a great tradition, and Jimmy’s made sure they didn’t waste those.”
Coach, some teams, they throw the ball 50 or 60 times. Other teams run triple option. Would it be accurate to say that Ohio State is more of a “meat and potatoes” conventionally good sort of team?
“Well, there again, you want me to categorize people in situations. I think they changed. Last year they were.. with the kid they had (Troy Smith), they did the things that he could do well.
They’re not doing some of the things this year that they did last year because this kid isn’t quite the runner. But this kid, the quarterback they have (Todd Boeckman), we’ve known his father. His father was a very successful high school coach in Ohio, Saint Henry’s. Jeff Hartings, who played for us; we went out there and recruited one of his kids.
He’s grown up. Football-wise, he is a smart kid, knows how to protect the ball. He knows who’s open, and they’ve changed their game. They’ve adapted to what they have.
So I think they’re just doing a good job coaching with what they’ve got. I think they did a good job last year with the other kid who could run and hurt you and run the triple option or whatever you want to call it, read option. Nothing but the old-fashioned Houston option, but the read option.
This guy, they don’t do much with that but they’ve changed their game a little bit in order to take advantage of a couple of really good wideouts and a heck of a tight end and a couple of big, strong running backs and outstanding offensive line and a very, very smart, poised quarterback.
Coach, do you expect to see one of those typical, physical Ohio State defenses Saturday? What stands out most to you about them?
“Well, I think they will play the defense they’ve played the last couple years. They hustle. They’ve got some people that are really quick and aggressive. I think it will be a tough football game. I wouldn’t expect anything less. I think they’re going to be.. it will be a good, tough football team and I think their defense is one of the better defenses in the country. They’re a challenge.”
When was the first time that you really got to meet Jim Tressel? And did you ever have a relationship with his family?
“As I said, Lee and I.. his father, Lee Tressel, and I…in the old days, when you were Coach of the Year, there were four or five clinics you had to go to. Maybe one in Detroit, one in Atlanta, some place like that.
So we traveled a little bit together. Lee and I were not really close friends; but as colleagues in our profession, I knew a lot about him. We talked football many times. And Jimmy was a kid.
And I don’t know whether I’m accurate in this, I keep telling Jimmy, I remember when he was this big, he came on the trip with us. I think he dad took him on a trip because we’re going back to ‘68, ‘69. I don’t know how old Jim is now. ‘68, ‘69, he was probably just 11, 12. I don’t know.
But I followed Jim at Youngstown. As a matter of fact, one time I was thinking about hiring him as a coach when he was an assistant coach when he was at Youngstown. He and I talked a lot when Jimmy was a youngster, made some notes.”
You guys had a pretty good association with Ohio State even before the Big Ten. Do you have a favorite Woody Hayes story?
“Oh, boy. Woody Hayes…Woody and Rip Engle were good friends. We beat Woody, I think, in ‘64. I forget what year it was. Rip invited him to speak to our senior banquet, and Woody came up and he was.. Woody was really.. did a great job and bragged on Rip and what a great coach he was and everything else.
And then Rip got him on the AFCA board of trustees. He (Hayes) didn’t want any part of the American Football Coach Association. And Rip said to him, “You should be on it and the whole bit.”
The one story…Buddy Tesner, who played for us, is an orthopedic surgeon in Columbus. And when he opened up an athletic medicine facility, he asked me to come out there and help dedicate it. So I went out and one of Buddy’s friends who is a lawyer now had been the manager of the Ohio State team one of the years that we played them when I was the head coach.
And he was one of the speakers, and he brought a tape. What he had done is he had taped all of Woody’s speeches at half time and before the game. And we played them.. the first year we played them. Out of respect, it’s the first year I’m the head coach playing against Woody Hayes. Before the game, I said, “you know, Coach, you look great. It is a great day.” We are having fun like that.
So he went in (the OSU locker room) and he said, “you know what that little squirt said? He set me up. “That little son of a B.., he isn’t going to set me up.” So he played the tape. Woody turned it all around, I’m trying to be a nice guy (laughter.)
We had a heck of a game that day. They beat us. Coming down the end, Archie Griffin made a great catch on a third and eight. We had a pass interference play. Pete Johnson carried the ball three times, I think, on fourth down to make the first down as they came down the field. Pete was a kid from Long Island, a big, big fullback.”
Ohio State’s got a great tradition. We’ve had a lot of good games with them. When you talk about your opponents you always start with the quarterback, almost always start with the quarterback, how talented they are, how poised they are. How much of your success this Saturday night depends on Anthony Morelli?
“I think a lot of it depends on Morelli and everybody else. We have to give him pass protection and have got to be able to handle some things these people do. You are sure not going to take the football and run it down their throat. Can’t do that. They are too good for that.
You’ve got to change up, make some adjustments as they go along. Not sure exactly what kind of blitzes you are going to get because, as I started out saying, they really are well-coached.
This is not a team that you can look at and say, “They are not solid here, not sound there.” They’ve got a good player in every place, and they coach them really well. So I think Morelli, he can’t carry us. It isn’t that he is going to carry us. We just got to be able to do some things at certain times that will be crucial if he can do it and I think he will. I think he has gotten himself in a position now that he can do it.”
Looking at Ohio State’s offense, the quarterback Boeckman has had a good year. Chris Wells, their running back, has had a good year. This is a pretty balanced offense at Ohio State, isn’t it?
“I think I said that. I mean, I said they got a really good offensive line. They got great tight ends, good wideouts and running backs and they have a very talented, poised quarterback. I would think that sounds like it is a balanced offense. Yeah, they’re balanced.”
