Terry Smith jokes about Jim Knowles returning to face Ohio State: 'He told us everything they're going to do'

Penn State interim coach Terry Smith has been in a pretty jovial mood this week ahead of a game against Ohio State. And why not, really?

The expectations are pretty low on the outside going in. The Buckeyes are the top-ranked team in the country and are steamrolling just about everyone. To keep it competitive would be viewed as a nice result for Penn State.

Of course, no one in the building in Happy Valley would admit to that. They want to win. To that end, Smith revealed a secret weapon of sorts: former Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who moved over to Penn State this offseason.

“Yeah, he told us everything they’re going to do,” Smith said with a laugh on Wednesday. “No, I’m just kidding. It’s just been business as usual. He gave us some insight as to how they think, but we’re just going about our business just preparing and just, in certain situations, what is coach Ryan Day thinking? Just insight like that.”

Still, there should be at least some useful familiarity for Knowles. At the very least, he’s seen the offensive personnel in spring practice and fall camp before.

That said, Smith downplayed the impact of that knowledge for Penn State this week. He explained why.

“For the most part, we’re just preparing of what we see on the film, because this is a new team,” he said. “This is a new year for them. They have three new coordinators and they have different ideas and different thoughts and different ways they’re doing things from last year. You know, it’s a talented group and we know the challenge at hand.”

Penn State looking to slow Jeremiah Smith

Penn State has not had the kind of season it had hoped for, but it can still play spoiler in a major way this weekend against Ohio State. First, it’ll have to figure out how to stop superstar receiver Jeremiah Smith.

Smith has logged at least five catches in every game this season, and he’s accounted for more than a touchdown per game — eight total in seven games — on the year. And that’s with teams mostly game-planning to try to take him away.

To that end, Smith dropped a subtle but hilarious joke about the star Ohio State player. To wit:

“This week will be an extreme challenge,” Smith said. “Ohio State has a long history of great receivers. Arguably, these two are two of the better ones in that list. Jeremiah Smith is as good as they come. We were hoping he’d go through a sophomore slump, but obviously he’s not.”