Everything Isaiah Nwokobia said previewing SMU vs. Penn State

SMU Safety Isaiah Nwokobia is pumped for the challenge against Penn State on the road on Saturday. One of the challenges is simply Tyler Warren.

On the big matchup vs Penn State: “These are the kind of names you dream of as a kid playing in the atmosphere, like what they have up there. So just excited for the city, excited for this program, man. Just happy to be here, man. It’s probably by far the biggest game that I’ve played here so far. So we are excited about the challenge, for sure.” 

On the Penn State offense on tape: “They’re a really good quarterback. He’s poised, a great running game, two great running backs. Obviously, the tight end, is really, really good. So we know they’re a good sound football team. So we’re excited for the challenge.” 

On how facing Jake Brinningstool can help prepare the defense for Tyler Warren: “We feel like we have a great game plan, we feel like we’ve been preparing really well. We know what he’s good at, so we’re excited to just welcome that and like you said last week they had a pretty good tight end too, so we learned some things. So yeah, we feel like with the game plan we have as long as we go out there, we execute, we feel confident.” 

On how Isaiah feels physically heading into game 14 this season: “Obviously, it’s a blessing to be playing this late in the season, but we understand nobody’s feeling good right now. It’s just about who can persevere, who can continue to just keep their head down and keep working and keep pushing and keep grinding. So we’re excited, we welcome that, though. We play a physical brand of football here. We take pride in that. And the safety room, me obviously, being a more physical safety, I welcome coming in and watching. So obviously, you’re gonna have your bangs, your bruises, whatever. It’s gonna hurt, it’s football man, but we love it. It’s part of the game, and it’s nothing really, you just gotta be ready. You gotta be able to push through it.” 

On the defensive line, especially the Miami guys: “Yeah, man, those guys from Miami up front and our entire defensive line, we have one of the best units in the country over the entire season. But speaking of transfers and everything, a big deal about our team is we understand that with college football now, every year, there are gonna be a lot of pieces moving. So what Coach Lashlee does is he makes sure we take pride in having time away from football as a team together, doing events. And just making sure we’re around each other so we can get to know each other and learn from each other. So that way when we go through hard stuff during the season, we stay together. And I think we’ve shown that we’ve been through a lot of adversity this year, but we’ve never been pointing fingers or putting other guys down. We stay together and I think that shows just how we’ve been able to mesh as a team.” 

On how to stay focused and not distracted from Penn State presenting “eye candy” on offense: “Yeah, I mean, we understand it’s a lot of special things they do to, like you said, create eye candy. But you take all that away and they’re really a more base offense. Besides all the extra stuff that they do. They do that so you have to make sure you check all those boxes before you get to the base game-playing stuff. So we understand a big key emphasis to us playing a good game is our eyes. We have to make sure our eyes are in the right place, we can’t be doing other people’s jobs. We have to do our job and make sure our eyes are where they’re supposed to be each and every single play because any play can be something special. So we gotta make sure we’re not getting it.” 

On forcing turnovers: “I think we’ve done a good job with that just because of the emphasis we put on it in practice, whether it’s scout or a team versus team with the ones’ offense, we value taking the ball away. Anytime we get our hand up, we want to take it away, we want to focus on punching the ball and doing everything we can to try to create turnovers. Because we know turnovers change the game. And especially for a game like this, man, where we’re playing a great team, a great offense, players are gonna have to make plays and create some turnovers to give us the best chance to win. And we just really understand those plays, they change the game. So we really value that and we put a lot of emphasis on that each and every single practice.”

On what it’s like going up against Kevin Jennings in practice: “For sure, just because of how athletic he is, and how poised he is in the pocket. He steps up, you never know if he’s stepping up, getting out of the pocket to run or pass. So it’s like you wanna come up and stop the run, but at the same time you can pull up and throw it at any second so you’re not gonna be able to keep an eye on where it’s supposed to be and do your job, it’s fun. So we love that challenge each and every day. We try to go back and forth against the offense; they make a play, we make a play. Yeah, he’s definitely a challenge practice, but it’s a great thing because we know that he’s gonna give us his best each and every practice. So he’s gonna make us better.” 

On how to evaluate Penn State’s running game: “Yeah, we think [both running backs are] explosive, but they’re also good at getting downhill, finishing runs. They catch the ball out of the backfield, they do a lot of stuff well. So we know we’re gonna have to be keyed in on that, keyed in on the run game, and then also get those guys out of the backfield, catch the passes. I think 10 is the third-leading pass catcher as well. So we understand the challenge that brings. We know what we have to do.”