TodayGood news and bad news for Penn State
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Penn State football coach Joe Paterno answers questions during his weekly news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008 in State College, Pa. Sixth-ranked Penn State plays at Wisconsin on Saturday. (AP Photo/Pat Little)
Good news, bad news for Penn State as it prepares to head into Madison to tangle with the Wisconsin Badgers this weekend.
The good news, wide receiver Jordan Norwood will play this weekend when the No. 6 Nittany Lions take the field for the 8 p.m. kick.
The bad? The status of tight ends Andrew Quarless and Mickey Shuler are still up in the air after ankle injuries suffered last weekend against Purdue.
Head coach Joe Paterno confirmed the status of Norwood, the teams leading receiver on Tuesday afternoon, but said he needed to see Quarless and Shuler perform in practice over the next few days to make a clear determination if they can play against the Badgers.
“It’s been tough,” Norwood said. “I think ‘going nuts’ is probably the right phrase to use. I wanted to play last week, play the week before but it was probably in my best interest not to and I’m kind of ready to play this week and glad it looks like it’s going to happen.”
Norwood injured his hamstring the week of the Illinois game during a drill while running. The senior said he felt his hamstring “just go,” and added that he had some knee trouble prior to that.
Norwood said he spent about two hours in the training room Tuesday and was expected to visit again before practice.
“A lot of leg exercises, lifting, running in the pool, icing, cold bath, electric (stimulus), stretching, it’s a lot of work that I want to put in because I want to get back out there and they’re kind of motivating me to.”
“Norwood will play,” Paterno said. “He practiced (Monday) and the other two kids, I didn’t want them to do much (Monday). I wanted to see how they jogged around, the trainer watched them and we’ll see how they react to the activities they had (Monday) when we go out (Tuesday). I think both those kids will be OK, but I am not sure yet. I am sure about Norwood.”
Paterno also addressed his own health problems, but isn’t sure what he will do Saturday, whether he coaches from the sideline or the press box.
“I’m active as much as I can,” Paterno said, “trying to stretch it, and do as much as I can and things like that, but there isn’t a heckuva lot I can do with it right now, I just got to live with it until I’ve got time to have someone take a look at it and maybe fix it up a little bit.”
“I don’t think I am going to do anything until after the season.”
Paterno was forced to coach from the press box last weekend in West Lafayette due to the nagging leg injury he suffered while showing a drill to a player earlier in the season.
The veteran coach also sat in the box for the second half of the Temple game earlier this season.
It was out in Wisconsin back in 2006 when Badger linebacker DeAndre Levy and Quarless collided with Paterno on the sideline. He was carted off the field after suffering a broken leg.
“Actually as far as making a significant contribution on the strategy side and the tactical side, you’re better off upstairs,” Paterno said. “You can see more and as long as we have the kind of communications we have now I can talk to everybody on the sideline with the one microphone and one set of earphones and they can all talk to me.
“So I think that’s an advantage. The disadvantage, you like to be on the field, get a feel for what’s going on if somebody has got a little bit out of whack and you want to sit them down and say ‘come on, forget that last one, let’s do this one,’ but there again, I know you guys get ‘here he goes again,’ but you’ve got to go back to the fact we have a coaching staff that’s very, very sensitive to all the things that I should be sensitive to and I think they do a good job if a kid doesn’t get in as much or he makes a mistake and they kind of encourage him and bring him along and say ‘hey, let’s get him with the next one.’ I don’t think there is much of a disadvantage being upstairs. If I said to you, depending on the people you have downstairs, running the show for you, it might be an advantage.”
Paterno said the injury really hasn’t made him think about what will happen post-2008 season.
“It hasn’t, let me just leave it at that,” Paterno said. “It hasn’t.”
Paterno has not been able to run out on the field with his team, nor has he been able to partake in a decades-long game-day tradition of walking through the player stretch lines during warm-ups to say something to each individual player.
“I try to spend a little more time in the locker room with them, walk around in the locker room or during the week,” Paterno said. “I have a motor cart they drive me around in now. In fact I probably harass them now more than I did when I walked. I can get there faster. Although I’ve got a lousy driver. (Tom) Venturino is going put me into the wall one of these days.
“I miss running out on the field. I would be dishonest if I told you I used to love to just get out there and the crowd may have fired me up and the whole bit. But there’s a lot worse things that can happen to you.”
Penn State will face a different style of opponent than the teams it’s beaten to date as Wisconsin’s power rushing attack, averaging 210.6 yards per game, will present a challenge to the Nittany Lions front seven on defense.
“I think we’re playing good, solid defense,” Paterno said. “You consider the injuries we’ve had up front, the people we lost for games and the people we lost for the season, that we could have had and as I said, some of the really good prospects that have been hurt, I think they’ve done very well.”
“(Wisconsin) will be a little more smash mouth kind of football because Wisconsin is a tough football team and prides themselves in physical toughness, but I think you’ve got to line up properly and you’ve got to tackle and you’ve got to get to the football.
“You may not have quite as many lineup problems as ordinarily, but Wisconsin gives you so many different looks with two or three tight ends, they jump around, you really don’t get any benefit out of that. So I think it’s just a question of mentally. You’ve got to get ready for a tough football game. It’s football.”
NOTES: Should Shuler and Quarless be unable to go, redshirt freshman Andrew Szczerba would get the start. Senior Greg Miskinis and true freshman Mark Wedderburn are the only other tight ends on the active roster. ... Wisconsin’s defensive front should also present the toughest task to date for the Nittany Lions offensive line. The Badgers start three seniors and a junior along the line and overall have five seniors in the front seven. “They come off the ball and knock your jock off,” Paterno said. “And they don’t make mistakes. They’re just a good football team. The five seniors, two juniors are all big, strong guys and they’re not flopping around out there, they’re not big strong fat guys, they’re big strong guys, who are good athletes, are agile. They adjust well, they combo-block you well, they’re tough to get around on pass protection, they’re just good.” Paterno added that he feels it will be the toughest challenge his offensive line faces because Wisconsin will load eight or nine guys in the box to prevent the run.
