Paterno presser quick hits

At his weekly press conference, Joe Paterno was less than chipper with his team's performance, particularly the offensive line, the last two weeks. But overall, Paterno likes the potential of this team, if a few things here and there can come together. On to the highlights...

• In the presser's second question, Joe was asked if there would be changes along the offensive line. Fair enough. We've all been wondering what will happen up front offensively. At first, Joe was vague:

"Well, we might. We'll see what goes on this week."

But he may have let more out than he intended to, when answering a question about Johnnie Troutman's progress and weight:

"He played some Saturday and he may play a lot more this Saturday. [emphasis mine] I think a lot will depend again, as I said earlier, how we practice, how he practices and how some of the other kids on the offensive line practice. But he's gotten better."

Joe went on in later answers to say that other than the guards, things probably won't shake up too much this week. But don't think that's not huge. In Penn State's style of running game, effective guard play is critical.

• Navorro Bowman probably (99%) won't play this week. We sort of knew that, but the question had to be asked.

• Joe kept stressing that Syracuse kept a lot of guys in the box to stop the run, particularly stacking the safety down low. That gave the offense some problems that might not come about when teams really try to stop the pass more.

"I think we had the ball 67 times. And I think all but maybe eight or nine times they blitzed. So when you're facing that, we try to be stubborn and try to run the ball because I think we need the work... Whether the offensive line improved that much, it's hard to tell, because, again, as I said earlier, Syracuse just kept coming. They just kept blitzing guys, linebackers and outside people, and kept those two safeties very close to the football."

Temple played a 4-4-3 against Villanova, but even coach Al Golden said it was probably a mistake. However, the Owls usually play a 5-2-4, so we don't really know how things will shake out this Saturday.

• Joe talked about the walk-on process, part of a question about how well walk on players have done under his watch. Please, keep the laughter to a dull roar, but I actually did this once...

"But once you start on it (the season), we have a day, we may have two days now, where we invite anybody from the student body who wants to come out and literally try out to be a walk on. And we'll get a couple of kids there. But most of the good ones we get are kids we knew about before they came here, kids that we probably, if we had more aid, would have recruited."

I did it before spring practice started. It was in February 2004, I think. Got to run drills, a 40-yard dash, and got yelled at by Larry Johnson, Sr. It was a blast, and I'm really glad I did it.

• Oh, and in case you weren't floored during this week's Penn State Football Story, here's what you missed:

That's right. Josh Hull is sporting a rather large mustache. Whatever works for him, I guess.

Ok folks, it's late in the news day, and I'm sure you already read everything there is to know about today's press conference. So, I'll leave you here. Tomorrow, I'll have my responses up for this week's Blue White Roundtable, and later, my weekly Big Ten Pick'em.