Joe Pa Press Conference Excerpts

Joe, do you expect Navorro Bowman to get back to practice this week, and how careful do you have to be with that kind of injury?

I don't know. He didn't do anything yesterday. We talked a little bit as a staff this morning. And I'm going to... I think he's got to start practicing pretty quick if he wants to play Saturday.
But, I haven't had a chance to talk to him today. So I'm reluctant to say. I talked to him a little bit before practice yesterday and he said it was still sore. But whether it was that sore that he can't practice today, I don't know. I think that's the doctor's and trainer's call. I don't know yet. I don't think we'll know until he gets out and tries to do a couple of things today. I think he's got to do it today. I don't think we can wait until tomorrow because we've got some other kids we've got to get ready.

Analysis: Penn State has the luxury to ease Bowman back for Big Ten play with the solid play of his back-up, Nathan Stupar. Bowman injured himself in the 31-7 season-opening victory over Akron, and Stupar recorded 10 tackles in that victory.

Q. Opposing defenses keep coming at you with different formations and stacking safeties. Are you comfortable to throw more than run?

If we're effective, I'm okay. I think we have to play each game, down, distance, situations, field position, kicking game, all those things tie in with the football game.

Hopefully we can run if we run into the situation where they take away the passing game from us, and vice versa. I can't tell you exactly what I'm prepared, what we are prepared to do except hopefully we're practicing for any contingency. I would hope when we stop getting blitzes I think Syracuse blitzed all but maybe eight times. 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.

But whether we can do that against Temple, I don't know. I don't know what Temple's going to do. Temple starts out with a different defensive scheme than Syracuse did. Temple plays a little different, as I said, scheme. So if they stay with the scheme they had it will be a little bit more balanced than what Syracuse gave us, and we'll have to adjust and so forth. So it's a cat and mouse thing.

Analysis: The lack of a running game, especially with Evan Royster's return this season, was been slightly worrisome, but a young, adjusting offensive line combined with eight-man stacked fronts has made holes hard to come by. The front five aren't doing a poor job off the ball, but they are having difficulty coming off blocks and getting to the next level. This job must mature and open holes for Royster and Stephfon Green heading into conference play.

And this final question-and-answer is typical Joe.

Q. I imagine you don't pay attention to rankings too much, national rankings, but being No. 5 in the country do you ever compare your team's development to other teams?

No, don't get me into that. I don't know what we are, for crying out loud. Geez, that's the same thing hey, I honest to God, are we No. 5 is that what you're telling me?

Q. Yes.

I don't know that we're No. 5. You guys don't seem to understand. I don't pay I don't read anything about us. I get the paper. I go to the bathroom. I take the paper in there and I scan it. I look at it. The first thing I do is look at who died. All right. Second thing I look at are headlines. Something that says, "Paterno is the Greatest," I read it.

(laughter) If it says I'm a bum, I don't even look at it. No, I don't pay attention. What you are today isn't what you're going to be tomorrow, all right? What you're going to be tomorrow is what you make happen tomorrow.

I read the newspapers. I feel bad about the way things have gone with the newspaper business, with the guys, with the computers (Internet), getting all that stuff on. Because it's taking away some of the guys, and I think some of the great guys I've known and who wrote well who set a standard for writing, people don't realize, they were all sports writers. They were all sports writers first. Grantland Rice and those guys. I don't know, it's a different world. And I'm not part of that world. I'm really not. I love to read the newspapers. I'd love to read the sports page, but to be very frank with you, I don't because so much of it is you guys have to base on what you are getting in an e mail, what you're getting because I've talked to a couple of guys about it.

You're influenced by, what people are after you to say something because you're competing. It's like I don't even turn on the television set anymore, because one television station is anti Obama. The other one you like to have somebody have an impartial view of some things because they studied it and they know about it. And they're not being influenced by the guy that owns the paper or the guy that owns the radio station, so it's a different world and it's not the kind of world that I'm comfortable with.

That's a speech. I usually get 100 bucks for that (laughter).