Penn State's record doesn't matter much to Ohio State. Especially to its team captains.
Even reeling off four straight losses, the Nittany Lions are viewed by the Buckeyes as a talented squad with real threats. Veterans of the team like Sonny Styles and Caleb Downs, who spoke to the media alongside fellow captains Austin Siereveld and Brandon Inniss on Wednesday, also know that the month of November is when college football truly starts heating up. And this Saturday just happens to be the first day of November.
"You got to play your best football in November," Styles said.
Inniss, meanwhile, was the latest Buckeye to talk up the greatness of Julian Sayin, predicting that the Ohio State quarterback is “definitely gonna win” the Heisman Trophy.
“They say all these other quarterbacks are up there with him, but he's different. He's the best, and they'll see,” Inniss said of Sayin.
Penn State's rushing attack, featuring running backs Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, was also a major talking point for Styles and Downs, while Siereveld spoke about Ohio State's issues running the football in recent weeks and touched on the right guard competition between Tegra Tshabola and Joshua Padilla.
WR Brandon Inniss
“Accuracy, his awareness. He’s very smart. He can throw any ball on the field. … I haven’t seen other quarterbacks manage a pocket like he has, stand in there and take a shot and throw a dot over the middle. … Who else is throwing 80% (completion percentage) in the country?”– Brandon Inniss on why he thinks Julian Sayin is the best quarterback in college football
- Inniss said Julian Sayin is “definitely gonna win” the Heisman Trophy. “They say all these other quarterbacks are up there with him, but he’s different. He’s the best, and they’ll see.”
- Inniss said Sayin is being a lot more vocal now than he was at the start of the season.
- On facing Jim Knowles this week: “He did a lot of great things here. We know what he likes to do. But we gotta be ready for anything. He could throw anything at us. But it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be a challenge.”
- On why Ohio State hasn’t had a letdown game this year: “Our preparation has been on an elite level. We gotta continue to do that. From film watching to taking notes in meetings and practice, we’ve done a great job so far. We just gotta keep doing that.”
- Inniss didn’t know that Ohio State won’t play Penn State next year, but expressed disappointment when told that: “Damn, we would have been going back to Penn State too. I would have liked that.”
- Inniss thinks his season has been “good” so far, but he expects more from himself. “I know there’s definitely things I can do better. I always want to be better at everything. Honestly, I’ve got to critique every little thing in my game. I’m a big, harsh critic on myself, so I went back and watched the film over the bye week to critique everything and hoping to put what I learned on the field.”
- On his fellow Ohio State wide receiver and close friend Carnell Tate: “I’m just hoping to see him go first round.”
- Asked about his injury vs. Wisconsin, Inniss said his foot “just got rolled up on,” but “it was all good.”
- Inniss said he’s “definitely more comfortable” fielding punts now than he was last year and the beginning of this year.
LB Sonny Styles
“We’re super focused, and I think Coach Day is instilling the right mindset in us. We know this is really where the season starts. honestly, anything that happened before this doesn’t really matter. You got to play your best football in November.”– Sonny Styles on Ohio State's focus before playing Penn State
- Styles said Penn State’s record doesn’t reflect how talented the Nittany Lions are in all three phases. “We’ve got a really good team in Penn State coming to the Shoe. They’re talented. I know they’ve lost some games, but they’re a talented team. They’re really good.”
- Styles said it didn’t take any convincing from Day or Ohio State’s coaching staff for the players to believe how talented Penn State is. “I know sometimes in college, I mean, you can have some bad games, things go the wrong way and things happen. But I know they’re gonna come ready to play. They’ve got some really good players on all sides of the ball and really good coaches. I know they’re gonna be ready to play when they come in here.”
- On Penn State running back Kaytron Allen: “I would say this about both (he and Nick Singleton). They’re both big, strong and fast. They can do anything out there. They can catch the ball out of the backfield. They can run downhill. They can get going on the edge. They can do everything. They can do everything.”
- On whether Jim Knowles being Penn State’s defensive coordinator provides any extra motivation for Ohio State: “We’re just focused on us — just doing what we do. Go out there and find a way to win.”
S Caleb Downs
“I feel like it’s another challenge for us. That’s how we’re looking at it. He left last year, and wish him the best, but not this week.”– Caleb Downs on playing against Jim Knowles
- On Matt Patricia vs. Jim Knowles: “They’re great in their own way, each of them. And that’s the big thing, you gotta be yourself in whatever you do. And I respect both of them for how they operate and how they act. Coach P’s defense is different, he teaches his own way. Coach Knowles’ defense is different, he teaches his own way.”
- What stands out about Penn State’s running game? “The running backs run really hard. They have two really good running backs, a two-headed snake. They do a lot of different shifts and motions, they get people out of sorts.”
- On Penn State quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer: “He’s athletic. He can move. He can get out of certain situations. He did that in the last game that he played. There’s not a lot of tape on him. But, I mean, we’ll have to see in the game. At the end of the day, he’s got to look somewhere. He’s got to throw the ball somewhere.”
- Downs didn’t know that Ohio State wouldn’t play Penn State next year, but he was surprised to hear that. “Since I’ve been a kid, I always remember that being a game. But I guess that’s the changes in college football right now. So it is what it is.”
- On freshman safety Faheem Delane: “He’s learned a lot. He’s grown up since he got here in the spring. He’s still growing as a player. He’s done a lot of things well, though. He’s got a lot of talent, a lot of physical attributes that make him a good player. And he’s going to continue to learn and do what he needs to do.”
- Downs says Julian Sayin has been the same guy since he arrived at Ohio State. “He’s acted the same way since I met him. Cool, calm, and collected. So J-Cool has been J-Cool.”
- Asked about Sayin comparing himself to Joe Burrow, Downs laughed and said he thinks Burrow “has a little more juice in the run game … He’d probably run a little bit more. But I respect it. He’s playing at an elite level himself, and Julian’s his own person.”
LT Austin Siereveld
“Coach Frye, he’ll be on your ass, but Coach Bowen, he will, but he's more of like, he's going to coach you, and he's going to make sure that it doesn't happen again. But both of them are really good coaches, I love them both.”– Austin Siereveld on the difference between Justin Frye and Tyler Bowen as offensive line coaches
- The offensive line has been trying to hold itself to a higher standard after the run game struggles of the past few games. “The past two weeks, it's really been an emphasis for us. And Wisconsin, (it) wasn't right up front. Coach Bowen is like, ‘This is not us. This was our worst game up front.’ And then he's just been pushing us, and every day we've been pushing on through.”
- It’s lapses of one missed block here or there that have created problems, Siereveld said. “Some of us had that one block, like we were one block away from hitting a big run. And then coming on the sidelines, you just look at it and you're like, like, ‘Come on, we gotta be better than this.’”
- On how the team is approaching practice as the No. 1-ranked team in the country: “We gotta get better each day. Every week, everyone's improving, so we gotta upgrade each week. Coach Day has been preaching to us every week, we gotta upgrade, upgrade, upgrade.”
- On the competition at right guard: “Everyone’s gotta know what they're doing, they gotta be confident and they gotta prepare like you're going out there. So no matter who's going out there, we gotta be confident up front, and we're going to play the best five guys we have.”
