Football

At Big Ten Media Days in late July, before the season began, The Daily asked various players around the conference their thoughts on the Northwestern program.

With the Wildcats set to host Penn State on Saturday, here’s what Nittany Lions safety Jordan Lucas had to say.

The Daily: From an outsider’s perspective, what can we expect to see from Penn State? If you turn on a Penn State game, what are you going to see?

Lucas: Just hard-nosed football. Dudes who are ready to play at any given moment.

The Daily: Where do you guys think you stack up against the Big Ten?

Lucas: We don’t. We stack up with Penn State. We stack up with tradition. That’s the thing that I think is the best about this team and our university: we’re not worried about anyone else. We’re worried about ourselves, we’re worried about making alumni proud, we’re worried about competing with the alumni. We want to be the best Penn State team that ever was.

The Daily: Last year even we at Northwestern were a little surprised about how that game against Penn State turned out. What do you remember from that game?

Lucas: I remember losing. We need to play well on offense and on defense, and that didn’t happen that game. And Northwestern was able to capitalize on that.

The Daily: There have been some good games between Northwestern and Penn State recently. What are your impressions generally of the Northwestern program, having played against them a couple of times?

Lucas: Well first of all they have a great coach. I’ve been paying attention to Coach Fitz for a pretty long time — I watch him in press conferences. You hear nothing but great things about him. So he’s a guy that definitely knows how to get his team ready. He’s a guy that loves his team and loves his players, and that goes a long way with getting your players to go out there and play for you. That’s what they do. They don’t always come out with a win, but they do always play hard.

The Daily: How does your approach change when you know you’re playing a team that has an inexperienced quarterback?

Lucas: You just want to make it as difficult for him as possible. Some quarterbacks who you can’t really fluster, you just have to go out there and play the game. But quarterbacks that you know have an issue with certain things, you want to go out there and try to expose those. And you just want to make him uncomfortable.

The Daily: Do you have a preference between playing against a stationary, pocket passer versus a more mobile guy?

Lucas: I just want to play against the best. If he’s a runner, then we have our work cut out for us. You guys have got to make sure that you’re able to contain, and we’ll handle ours in the back end.

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Twitter: @AlexPutterman