Penn State head coach Terry Smith Wednesday press conference: Ohio State

The Penn State football team faces Ohio State this weekend in a classic Big Ten clash that still has the attention of the college football world. Interim head coach Terry Smith spoke with the media after practice on Wednesday night to give an update on his team’s progress. You can hear his complete comments below, or on the Blue White Illustrated YouTube Channel.

Smith spoke for roughly ten minutes and discussed the progress of his offense and defense, which have been hard at work revamping issues that led to a 0-4 skid in the last four games.  

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Terry Smith Press Conference

Penn State is coming off a bye week heading into the matchup with Ohio State and has had much-needed time to assess its issues and work on corrections for the upcoming game. Now that the team is in the home stretch, how does Smith feel about the plan? 

“Yeah, I feel really good. You know, today really is your last hard, padded practice day. We’ll fine-tune some things tomorrow. Feel good about what the offense is doing. Obviously, we want to try to control the game. We have to outrush Ohio State to have a chance. We don’t do that, it’s going to be a long Saturday,” Smith said.

“And then we have to make some plays in the past game, we have to make some critical third downs when necessary and when needed, especially in the fourth quarter defensively, we have to make critical stops. And I think we have a good game plan for third-down defense. And, you know, hopefully we fixed our errors with the quarterback scramble, which has showed up in the last few games. So we’ve been working hard on that and I like where we are so far.”

More Penn State coverage this week

Penn State kicks off in Columbus at noon. We’ll have one more BWI Live Show, previewing the upcoming game at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning. Be sure to check out our special crossover episode with Letterman Row coming out Thursday evening as well!

Of course, we’ll have wall-to-wall gameday coverage on Saturday of the big game. Kick off your morning with the Penn State Football Tailgate Show, live at 9 a.m. from Legends Pub inside the Penn Stater. We’ll be discussing the game, matchups and ways that the Nittany Lions could pull off an upset against the Buckeyes this weekend.