PSU Q&A: Tariq Castro-Fields on big start for secondary, Kalen King, more

Penn State corner Tariq Castro-Fields has had a stellar start to the 2021 season, as have his teammates in the secondary, following a challenging 2020 slate.

The veteran defender from Maryland returned for another season with exactly this kind of individual and collective performance in mind. After five weeks, the Penn State starters have yet to surrender a touchdown pass and lead the Big Ten in average yards allows allowed per completion at 5.4.

"I think I've been playing good," Castro-Fields said. "I'm just trying to always just be consistent, as I say a lot, and just bring the rest of the corners up and keep mentoring guys and being a leader on this defense. I've been happy and I'm just happy I'm able to keep playing and keep progressing and keep improving my game."

Castro-Fields spoke for roughly 15 minutes with reporters this week in the leadup to the matchup at Iowa. Highlights from that conversation at the topic of this week's BWI Penn State Q&A.

Question: How important is defending against play action opposite Iowa?

Tariq Castro-Fields: "If I have a pass responsibility. I defend the pass. If my job is to fit the run, then my job is to be physical and go make a tackle and fit the run into the edges and things like that. Hust knowing your responsibility, knowing your role within the defense, and then just not being Superman, that's pretty much everything."

Q: What have you seen from Daequan Hardy?

TCF: "He has definitely grown a lot within his three years here. He's definitely a more mature player in terms of like, film study, in terms of knowing the defense, in terms of just practice habits, which has helped him this year greatly. He has a hard job covering slot receivers, and that's kind of his number one job in his role, so he's definitely thriving right now. He's gonna keep improving."

Q: How much pride you guys take in forcing so many turnovers this year?

TCF: "Turnovers are definitely something that we pride ourselves on as a whole defense, but especially in the DB room, of just getting your hands on the ball, deflections, PBUs, interceptions, and things like that. Just trying to create havoc back there, and then of course, when you go into a big game and you create turnovers that flip the momentum, that sets our offense up perfectly with field position and helps you in the field position battle and little things like that. My goal is always just to get three turnovers a game or more, and that's going to be big for us, especially on Saturday.

Q: When you said about no one trying to be Superman, what does that mean and why has it been important?

TCF: "It's no one trying to do someone else's job. We have great players all around, in the secondary, the linebacker level, the d-line level so, not one man has to carry the load. There are 11 players on the field for reason. Football is one of the greatest team sports there is to where, like, I rely on everyone to do their job, they rely on me to do my job so, when you kind of have that cohesion and that chemistry of everyone just wanting to do their job, then success is going to come from that always."

Q: What have you seen from Iowa's passing attack?

TCF: "I think they've been doing a good job of just getting their playmakers the ball from the outside to tight ends to, the running back even comes out of the backfield and runs routes and things like that. They make plays after the catch as well, so we got to get them to the ground, limit that, and of course, as you all know, their play action shots and play action passes coming off their run works really well, so we're definitely focused on that and trying to watch film on that and know it better.

Q: What have you seen from Joey Porter Jr.?

TCF: "Joey is just balling. He's a special talent. He has 35-inch arms, which I don't have, so he can kind of do things where, if he's beat a little bit, he stretches his arms out and makes the play, and I think he just is smarter this year of knowing how to play zone, getting better at his press technique, he starts, press plays off, like things that I didn't see too much last year when I wasn't playing, but this year he kind of implemented it in his game, and he's still improving, of course, like we all are."

Q: What are your impressions of Kalen King?

TCF: "Kalen is actually a guy that, Coach [Teryry Smith] decided to give me to mentee this year [Castro-Fields also mentored Joey Porter Jr.]. I mean, it seems like every guy I get, they've turned out to be like, stars, which I love when I get to do that just because I'm able to help someone and bring them up. I think Kalen has been doing a good job. He's still trying to learn how to balance the school part with the football part, and just the pressure and little things that come with college. People don't realize how hectic your schedule is with school and mixing that with football. He's been handling that well, and he just wants to keep improving."

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