Q&A with Penn State DC Manny Diaz talking Rose Bowl, season recap
Following the 35-21 victory over Utah in the annual Rose Bowl last week, Nittany Nation was able to catch up with Penn State Defensive Coordinator Manny Diaz to talk about the team’s victory, the youth movement on his defense and much more.
What does a game like the Rose Bowl do for your guys experience wise, preparing them for next year?
“It just sets the expectation that we can achieve great things. Now that they know how, they have the confidence that they can do it and did it against a back to back conference champion. I think that just changes the way guys see themselves and I think that’s the most important thing, self belief. I talked about it all month of December and that’s what we will take away from today. We will have a different self belief from this time last year and even this time last week.”
How big was the Rose Bowl victory for recruiting purposes?
“You want to see that the arrow is growing up, you want to show that you’ll play the young guys and you want to show you are moving in the right direction. I think all of those are major checkpoints for our program.”
Can you talk about your secondary and why they played so well in the Rose Bowl game, even after missing your top cornerback in Joey Porter Jr.
“I think they played well all year, we felt we had the best secondary in the country all year long. We felt that Johnny Dixon, who has been a co-starter for us and they went after him in the first third down of the game and he did a great job on his guy. Losing Jaylen Reed in the first / second drive of the game, that was a big loss, but all year we talk about our depth. We were able to roll a bunch of guys all season, like Zakee Wheatley, Keaton Ellis, Marquis Wilson and Daequan Hardy at nickel. Our guys just play to a standard and I feel like coach (Anthony) Poindexter and coach (Terry) Smith have done a phenomenal job with those guys all year.”
Was the Rose Bowl, the best the secondary played all year?
“It’s up there, I feel like we’ve had a bunch. We felt like we had a good matchup in man coverage and we felt like we made it hard on them and that ended up being true.”
You talked about that depth among your team, many of which consists of younger players. How big has that been for you guys all season long to see these young guys step up?
“It was great to see those guys on this stage and they will learn from it, but now they have a taste and an understanding of a standard. When you taste something like this, you don’t really want to go backwards.”
What’s that like seeing some of those young guys grow and how hard is it to balance playing time between those younger guys and the veterans?
“It’s funny because sometimes I forget since I haven’t been here long. I never thought of Jaylen Reed, Zakee Wheatley or Kobe King as second year guys in the program. I know the true freshmen that showed up, but at the end of the day I think it’s just the standard. We just started explaining to guys that this is the standard performance, it doesn’t matter who you, but this is the way we expect to play defense. I think they rose to that.”
Can you talk more about Abdul Carter specifically? He obviously rose to the occasion this season and is now a full fledged starter.
“It’s all about maturity that is the hardest part for the young guys. They definitely did a good job of it as the year went on, but they have to handle the assignment and the role. Also it’s not about just flashing, but can they also be steady down for down and they did a great job of that.”
You’ve been around college football for a while, how does this season compare to some of your past stops?
“What this team did and they did a phenomenal job was that no matter what was being said, they just focused on getting better every week. Learning from the games, even the wins and not just the losses. Today we talked about the Ohio State game and they really didn’t close the game. When you have control at the end of the game, you have to close the game. I felt like when we went up seven in the third there, from that point on we just went to a different level. Our guys on defense were doing whatever we could to close the game off and it felt like there was really 20 minutes where we were really dominant.”
How does this year’s defense compare to those you’ve seen in the past?
“Fortunately I’ve coached some really special ones and I always say that these guys are right up there. It felt like that at all three levels, I didn’t really feel like we had a weakness. I thought our guys with play heart for each other and the one thing that has to be written about them is the unselfishness. Look at guys like Curtis Jacobs who played SAM, so Abdul (Carter) could play the WILL and (Jonathan) Sutherland rotating in and out with Curtis. Then the guys up front, coach (John) Scott has a hard job too, he has more than 10 good defensive linemen and they don’t bitch, they play for each other and play hard.”
Now you will lose a couple of key guys, but you also return a lot of young talent. What is the potential look like for this defense next year?
“I think we learned a lot from the 13 games this year. We are a better version of ourselves now then what we were ever at midway through the season. I think the expectation is for that to continue. You understand the ins and outs, more details and I think we will only continue to get better.”
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