NEWS AND NOTES FROM JOE PATERNO'S PRESSER AT THE BIG TEN FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYS

Joe Paterno always has the most entertaining media day press conference of all the Big Ten head coaches.  Joe didn't disappoint this year, and here are the highlights:

WHEN ASKED IF HE WANTED TO MAKE THE TRADITIONAL OPENING STATEMENT:

“Not really…”

WHEN THE MODERATOR OPENED THE FLOOR FOR QUESTIONS:

“Speak up when you do it, will ya guys?”

ON HIS PAST INJURIES:

“I through my hip out trying to show off kicking the ball for the kids. I couldn’t kick when I was healthy and I sure couldn’t do it with a broken knee.”

ON HIS TEAM'S SECONDARY:

“I don’t like to get into personalities, but I think we have a lot of work around us.”

"I don’t think we played well last year, and I don’t think I did a good job of coaching last year to be frank with you.”

ON ADDING NEBRASKA TO THE BIG TEN:

“One thing I feel extremely good about is that Nebraska is in it.”

“The tougher the other guy is, the better you get if you’re a competitor.”

ON THE PROBLEMS AT OHIO STATE:

“I don’t know enough about it. Ohio State has been a great college football program through the years. Now all of a sudden something is going on out there, I just don’t know enough about it.”

“I try not to even read anything about it.”

ON THIS BEING THE LAST YEAR OF HIS CURRENT CONTRACT:

“Is this the last year of my contract? I didn’t even know I had a contract.”

“I never signed a contract, so 4 or 5 years later when the Patriots were fooling around with me they told me we better sign a contract.”

ON THE CURRENT COMPLIANCE PROBLEMS ACROSS COLLEGE FOOTBALL:

“We’ve always had problems, and you’re gonna have problems when you have the kind of competitions that’s going on.”

ON HOW HE USED TO DEAL WITH PLAYER MISCONDUCT:

"I would get a call from one of the campus cops and they’d say ‘Hey, coach, you better come here and get Mike, he’s had too much to drink and is making a lot of noise.’ I’d take him home, put him in bed and then run him for the rest of the week, and you guys never heard anything about it."

"Anyway, I’m shooting my mouth off too much here."

ON HIS QUARTERBACK SITUATION:

“I think we’ll be better. Whether we’ll be good enough, I don’t know.”

ON WHY HE'S NEVER HAD ANY MAJOR RULES VIOLATIONS:

“Maybe we’re lucky. I don’t know.”

“I tell our alumni all the time, stay out of it.”