Penn State CB AJ Harris on What Jaylen Reed Told him Before 1st PSU Start 9/3/24 | Week 1 | NSN

good afternoon everyone thank you for joining us for our Zoom with AJ Harris as always please raise your hand and I will unmute you start with Tyler Donahue good afternoon AJ how are you today good how about yourself doing well thank you um curious what it meant to you to get the starting opportunity in your first pen State game and and ultimately how would you kind of evaluate your first matchup and an Lions uniform I mean it meant the world to me um just getting my first opportunity to play for pen State um the program is really you know taking me and walking me in with open arms so I just want to really go out there and leave it all out on the field for my team and my coaching staff and I would like to say I we had a pretty good showing as a defense um it was a great game um you know the question mark has the the DB room or The Corner Room coming into this season and I feel like that was just a great great start off to the season for the cornerback room joh mcdonal AJ thanks for your time much appreciated uh following up on Tyler's question how and when did you find out that you were going to start on Saturday against West Virginia and uh what was your reaction to that if you remember from that um it was actually the night before um we were doing we we were going through our meemes with uh coach Terry Smith and um just going over the keys the victory for that um for that week and um we were going over personnel and I just remember coach telling me that um me and Jaylen Kimber would get the start and um just the immediate focus a laser focus um came to my mindset and just uh gratitude thankful for the opportunity J G appreciate the time today AJ uh what did you do to put yourself in that position to earn that starting job how did you go about things uh this summer to be in that position I'd say by um just trying my best to being a pro um I feel like um your ultimate goal is the NFL and you can't wait to to live that lifestyle or to be a pro so I say by just priming my body and making sure I'm as ready as possible for the season and just not leaving any um Stones unturned just making sure I do all my work everything on my end and um just leave it up to the coaching staff because the coaching staff know what's best at the end of the day Seth angle hey AJ thanks for doing this um I guess following up on that but when we talked to Coach Franklin yesterday he said that not just a corner but a number of positions there's still battles going on for that starting spot knowing that what's your mentality going into this week to keep the starting spot um it's only week one um not being too high not being too low staying levelheaded and understand that you know we have a lot of um games ahead of us so just not getting too happy with week one and knowing that it's still a lot of work that's undone um on my behalf knowing that you know it's still not a lot that's been showcased or put out there so just making sure I keep my head down and just do my work Max Ral hey AJ how are you how you doing I'm doing well um how difficult in practice has it been so far for The Corner Room to kind of adapt to what Andy codal Nikki can do uh with his creativity and especially with the two quarterback system that that you guys have run a lot with Drew and B um it's been great just giving us a lot of different looks um it's tough um every day you just know you have to be on your p's and q's cuz you never really know what to expect um every day it's a battle it's War um not to mention um our wide receiver room U pushes us every day so just knowing that we're going to get good looks good battles every day it's it's really got us prepared for the season and I think it'll continue to to show as the weeks go go on Frank panny hey AJ um as far as Jaylen Reed impact uh effect that he's had on you what have you seen from him especially if there's something that stood out to you in the first game with him at West Virginia I feel like Jaylen Reed jumped off the screen and everybody could see it um his work show for himself um he's been a great leader um just in that room knowing what what we want to get this year um he's just been good at taking all the corners under his wings just making sure that he communicates with us and um just making sure we're always on the same page um J Reed is a great teammate um and I really appreciate him um he he he definitely helped calm my nerves before the game just understanding that I had somebody that truly believed in me and he he's definitely one of those teammates that that that you love to have and go to war with and I can't wait to see how the rest of this season uh reveals for him because he he had a great start to this season and I believe he'll do nothing but get better as the season goes audre SN hey AJ thanks for your time today um going off of what you just said there with Jaylen Reed how did he calm your nerves like what what did he say or do um he just reminded me like it's a lot of work being put on behind closed doors um Beyond just within you know what we have to do and a lot of work was being put in with Jaylen Reed um I I did a lot of work with him we actually went out of town and got some work in Houston and he it's just great to know that somebody has your back before the game so just going into the game um I I'm a pretty confident person but then again it was my first Collegian start so he was just reminding me like we didn't we didn't did everything need we've put in all the work and took all the steps required for us to be ready for this game so just go out there and play play freely for and I I did so Joe Smeltzer hey AJ thanks for the time so Saturday was your first game in coach Allen's uh defense how do you feel that that defense fits what you do well as a player um I feel like if fit me well which was also um a reason that I chose to come in here prior to making my decision um I prior to me making the decision to come here I had talks to coach Allen about his defense um his philosophies what he believed in and it just aligned with winning football on the defensive side and I believe it truly fits me um a lot of man some Zone where I can get eyes on quarterback and I feel like that fits my game well Tyler Don AJ there's obviously been a lot of talk about what Harrison Wallace did on Saturday what did you see through eight months especially on field trying to cover him going back and forth with battles that that that made you know Harrison Wallace could be this kind of a dude in 2024 well I yeah it was expected for me um he knows that from myself um before the game I was talking to him telling him like you you know what I expect out of you you know what this year means to us and um he did just that um throughout throughout the throughout the offseason I I constantly seen wide receivers getting in extra work and I believe that Harrison did a great job of just taking everybody with him and making sure that he didn't leave any stone unturned as well I believe that you um a lot of people are just now getting to see the work that's been done behind closed doors um this is all expected cuz I I've watched him work and I battle with him every day so I expect him to continue to to Exel and continue to do bigger and better things because that that's what we worked for this offseason didn't Kellen AJ you started out there with with Jaylen Kimber um what can you tell us about his fall Camp what you saw him do to earn that spot and what what does what's kind of your scouting report on him him as a cornerback um calm cool collected levelheaded poised um seen the game a lot um knows what's coming before it comes um someone that could kind of Mentor the room in a way um Jaylen has been a great teammate just because he is the older guy so I believe that him being able to see um him having the advantage of seeing it all has helped this room um just stay calm cool and collected and levelheaded as well because that's just a personality he has and I believe that it kind of rubs off on on our room as well in a way when it needs to because I just believe that when when Jayla needs to talk he talks and he doesn't say much so when he does say something everybody listens and I believe that that that's helped us a lot this this off seon and I believe that someone who seen a lot of football you kind of know what's coming and you just play you play freely and with with that experience it allows you to you know come in into starting spark and earn it um just because you know you know what's coming time for two more Seth angle AJ when you were at Georgia you were surrounded by you know a bunch of players who had maybe experienced national championship before um what exactly did you learn from being around guys like that and do you you know maybe see a similar mentality from some of your teammates at Penn State it's it's funny you ask that because yes um I've been around a lot of those players those type of players and still have core relationships and bonds with those players at at my previous University and I do see a lot of similarities um I believe we just need to stay in a moment and just focus on B and green right now that's all that we can control and you know just not not not focus on any of the outside noise and everything will take care of itself I believe like when it comes to that just you know be where your feet are be in the moment and be present last question Audrey Snider AJ I wanted to go back to you said about going down to Houston um this spring or summer um I guess how did the trip come together did any other teammates go with you and jayen and who are you training was down there we were training with jorey one way um uh he he's pretty he's pretty sought after um a lot of NFL and college players work out with him and it was actually it was actually um a few bad it was me jayen Reed um saki um who else came it was it was a few backend players and and you know it was just some to to bond some team bonding before the season started it was actually this summer and um I I definitely believe that that's kind of what brought some are back in together and made us such a tight-knit group and I believe that it it definitely paid off