Penn State football: Bill O'Brien plays down coach of the year talk

Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien is starting to be talked about as a potential candidate to win coach of the year honors with the job he's done in such brutal circumstances.

The Nittany Lions started off the season with losses to the Ohio Bobcats and Virginia Cavaliers, looking as though a very long year was in store. However, O'Brien has righted the ship with four consecutive victories, including last Saturday's win over the previously unbeaten Northwestern Wildcats.

Even though O'Brien is getting high praise, don't expect him to buy into the hype just yet.

"We're 4-2 and we have murderer's row coming up here, starting with Iowa," O'Brien said. "There's a lot of great coaches in this country. I've only coached six games my whole career. That's the farthest thing from my mind."

O'Brien stated that even when things weren't going well early, there was no time to panic. Instead, the first-year head coach says the only focus was on the upcoming game.

"You can't be up-and-down in this business. You have to come to work every day and every week understanding that each week brings a new opponent. We started the season 0-2, but I felt that we did a lot of good things in those games.

"I knew that we had a really tough, resilient group of players and a good coaching staff. I felt that if we kept practicing hard and taking care of the little things and maybe doing a little bit better job in some other areas, starting with me. If we did that, maybe we would be okay."