Check back here for live updates from Joe Paterno's weekly press conference. The coach is currently taping interviews with ABC, but Paterno's press conference will get under way at 12:30 p.m.
On Alabama: "Just about everything. They have great speed. Wonderful skill people. ... They play with enthusiasm. I know they're breaking in a new kicker, but other than that, they're fairly experienced. ... They're extremely well coached. They come out you all day. They have talent, they're well coached and they love to play. That combination makes them tough to play."
On Jones: "He's gonna be a big challenge. ... The quarterback scrambles so well, if you go after him and miss him, he runs out of the pocket and throws the ball down the field to the big wideout. ... He's gonna be a big problem for us. Very talented. He's big and fast and has great hands. ... He blocks. All their kids block. This is an awfully good running team."
On Saban at MSU: "When he was at Michigan State, they were tough. His teams, when we played them at Michigan State, they played tough. Nick has a way of getting kids to hustle and drive. He's a tough guy and his kids play tough. He's got a little better talent at Alabama than he had at Michigan State. More good ones than he had at Michigan State but the same kind of attitude toward the game, the same kind of hustle, the details, the fundamentals, the toughness. It's not much different except he's got a little better talent."
On the run game vs. YSU: "I don't think we ran the ball very well to be honest with you. The thing I have to get across to people is how young this football team is. It's the youngest team I've ever coached."
On the left side of the offensive line: "I think we have to do better everywhere. I think we did a better job defensively, but we didn't come up with an interception. They protected the ball well. So that part of it, I get back to the left side, none of those kids have played much football. We're not a cohesive group yet. I blame a lot of that on the fact there's not a lot of real leadership. There's not a dominant player there yet. Hopefully we'll develop that as the season goes along. It's a young team. For me to be critical of the left side would be unfair.
On the youth handling the atmosphere: "If I knew the answer I don't know how we're gonna handle it. I hope we go down there and realize it's one of the opportunities you only get a few times in their career. Just go out, do what you can do, do as well as you can do it and try to learn. And I think we will learn from it."
On the youth handling the atmosphere: "If I knew the answer I don't know how we're gonna handle it. I hope we go down there and realize it's one of the opportunities you only get a few times in their career. Just go out, do what you can do, do as well as you can do it and try to learn. And I think we will learn from it. Again, that's part of why you come to Penn State, because you have opportunities to play in games like this. That doesn't mean a miracle's going to happen."
On Bryant: "I'll talk about my relationship with Paul Bryant sometime this spring. Right now, it's Penn State vs. Alabama."
On Royster's weight: "I don't think he's overweight now. He's down to about 218. I worried about his stamina if we got in a situation where he had to carry the ball 20-25 times. I was nervous if he was too heavy he may not be able to do some of those things as well as he could have. As we go along and get a little more experience underneath us at center and we can incorporate him into the pass game, he'll be more of a factor."
On the series being delayed: "Mal Moore, the athletic director, called. They had just lost 15-16 players to some kind of NCAA violation. He frankly said can you postpone this series for a couple years. I said that's OK with me, but you ought to talk it out with Curley. It appears Tim was receptive to that."
On the series: "We played Alabama in the Liberty Bowl in 1959 and they didn't have any blacks. We tried to have home and home with some of the SEC teams but you can't get them to come up. Alabama has been willing to come home and home. And we've had good games, a good series. So I can't speak for them but as far as we're concerned, the Alabama game is a good game for us even though I feel we're outmanned for this one because of age and maturity. But it's still a great experience to take them down into that stadium."
On the 1979 Sugar Bowl: "I remember we lost it. We had a great goal line stand. It was a great defensive game. Alabama really had a lot of injuries. Their outside linebacker was a great player. They were all well for that game. That was one heck of a football game, defensively anyway."
On Bolden: "We had to have some strong reasons for his personality, his character, his poise. He's gonna have his problems Saturday. We can't protect him like we did against Youngstown. Is he gonna have the kind of success he had against Youngstown? No. Alabama's too good for that. Hopefully we put him in a position where he can at least have some success."
On Bolden again: "We played Bolden because we thought he was the best kid to play at that time. If something happens, I feel confident the other two kids will be able to step in there and do some things. Bolden's gotta go down there and just do the job he can do. Be careful with the football. It's a football game, not the crusades."
On 1979 again: "We came a couple plays away from winning. They were a good team, they made a couple plays and they beat us. You can debate on second down whether Suhey scored."
On left guard rotation: "I haven't thought about it. Really."
On success in SEC winning national titles: "I think the SEC has been a little bit ahead of people as far as playing in national titles and everything else. When we went out to play Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl, they played two games after we did. I felt they were further along and more prepared than we were. I think the SEC has been a little ahead. They've done a better job with the media. The Big Ten Network, to be very frank with you, is not something I'm sure was the way to go. But that's cut down the gap some. The SEC has been very, very media aware. They've done a little better job. I think we're starting to catch up."
On Alabama's WR depth: "I don't think you can stop them. We talked about the big kid. The thing about it is the quarterback moves around a lot and is tough to handle. I don't think the quarterback has lost a college game. I think every game he's started they've won. It's a complete offense. If you overplay any one aspect of it, you're gonna be in trouble."
On what he learned from Bear: "I don't want to talk about Bryant. Really. I don't think that's fair to the kids playing the game today. There's so many stories I could tell but I don't want to get into them. Penn State's playing Alabama and there's a bunch of kids who don't know anything about us."
On links between McElroy and Shaffer: "I hadn't thought of that. Shaffer was not a great high school quarterback. In fact, his high school coach, the year John got out of high school, the coach took a Notre Dame job and didn't recruit John to Notre Dame. So I called him, because I liked John. Jerry said to me he can't throw well enough. I said well we don't throw the ball that much. He lost one game in two years. So he was, he was quite a guy. So I don't compare him to anybody. But Shaffer was very productive."
On losing Dareus: "We gotta play the guys we have to play. I'm sure they have backup guys. The guy not playing is one heck of a football player. Do they have one as good behind them? I don't know. They're all well coached. They all know where the ball is and where to line up. They tackle well. How much they're gonna miss the kid having problems, I don't know."
On Bowden: "Bobby's got an open invitation from us to come up any time he wants to come up. Bobby's a friend. Bobby coached at Samford. In fact, that's the first time I met him. I think both he and his wife went to high school in Birmingham. So it's a little bit of a more natural thing to say hey, come on up to a game in Alabama than it is State College. I never even thought about inviting him to a game here except he's got an open invitation to come to any game he wants to."
On whether he'll see Bobby: "Bobby's a guest of Alabama. They haven't invited me to any social events."
