Coach O’Brien previews Penn State/Purdue

During Bill O’Brien’s teleconference, he answers questions about Saturday’s game against Purdue.

With the QB situation at Purdue, what’s the game plan heading into the game with Robert Marve being announced as starter after not starting the last few games?

Coach O’Brien: I’m not going to give you the game plan.  We’re just looking forward to the challenge of playing Purdue. In my opinion, they’re a very, very good team, a dangerous team. They have players on both sides of the ball that are playmakers. It’s going to be a very difficult game.

Offensively, what are you looking for against a Purdue defense that has had its ups-and-downs this year?

Coach O’Brien: They have a very talented defense. They have two inside tackles that are really, really good players. It starts there.  The linebacking corps is solid. The secondary is very, very solid with big, physical guys. We’ve got a big challenge. We’ve got to go back to playing good, fundamental football and we have to do a great job in practice this week of preparing our players. We have to get back out there and compete better than we did as a coaching staff and as players against Ohio State.

Are you going to stick with the same return guys this week, Bill Belton and Jesse Della Valle?

Coach O’Brien: We’ll compete in practice and we’ll probably decide that Friday night.

What are your thoughts about the Purdue offense? What challenges do they present to you guys?

Coach O’Brien: They present a lot of challenges. The thing that you have to do when you play an offense like Purdue, a very multiple offense that does a lot of different things, is that you have to play well within the framework of your defense.  You’ve got to play well on third down. They’re going to have things on third down that maybe you haven’t seen on tape, they’re a game plan type team. Those are things that we’re really working hard at this week and it’s a big challenge for us on the road, at Purdue, a good coaching staff and good players. It will be a tough game

Does facing offenses like Northwestern and Ohio State help you to prepare for a multiple offense team like Purdue?

Coach O’Brien: Sure. We’ve played a lot of no-huddle teams this year and we run a lot of that also in practice. Hopefully our defense can get up to speed on the tempo. Hopefully they’ll be ready as far as the tempo goes.