On what it's like having four generations of Harbaugh's around him

I'm really grateful for it, it's not something that I take for granted. It's a very neat thing, to be able to come into work here and work with my with dad. A lot of people, men and women, who would love an opportunity to do what they love and do it with their mom or their dad. It's a very cool thing. I'm thankful for that every single day. The proximity, being able to be around one of my biggest role models but also to learn from him, a guy who I think is the very best in the world with what he does and be able to see firsthand the decisions he makes and all that stuff. You take it out of football, it's amazing to have my family be able to be around. My grandparents to be able to around their grandparents and stuff. Definitely very thankful for it. Just really happy to be in that situation. Enjoying it.

On the interactions with family outside of football

I don't know if you ever really get outside of football. We get together at my dad's house, it always comes back to football. It's what we love, it's what we know. We have a lot of fun with it. You like throwing on a game and talking ball, that kind of thing. We can function. We are regular people in that way, we can function and have regular conversations and stuff but inevitably, things do come back to football and we're not ashamed of that.

On the transition to secondary coach

It's been phenomenal. It's an amazing thing when you're coaching the same game and you change positions, whether it's on the same side of the ball, opposite sides or on special teams. There's so many different perspectives to this game so I've really enjoyed getting a different perspective on the game. Incredibly thankful for Coach Clink and Coach Minter being so welcoming. They're the best. Clink is the best in the country at what he does. Just a guru back there with the corners, with the safeties, the nickels. Being able to learn from him day in and day out and to be in a scheme that's very back-end friendly with Coach Minter has been a fantastic thing. It's been a great transition. Really, I just owe it to them because of the way they've received me and the way they've taught me.

On how to prepare his group for Penn State

The first thing was a great review of last week. The game against Indiana presented certain challenges. The tempo they played with, that was something Penn State used against us last year, a good amount of tempo. Indiana played with some really wide splits, they have some pretty good receivers and they like to air it out a little bit. Penn State is a little bit different but some of the sets that IU got in and some of the challenges that they presented were very nice to be able to get work on, make adjustments to them and clean up today when we review the film and everything. I think that was the first step. Aside from that, you take a big game like this where there's pressure, a good opponent, it all comes back to the basics of what's the call, let's get aligned correctly, play with great fundamentals, play with our hands on the perimeter, great eye discipline on screens. Screen and go's, that sort of thing. You have to be great tacklers. Indiana, with the splits, they presented the same problems in the run game. If the ball gets outside of the box there's a potential for it to be a big play because the nearest overhang defender really isn't very close. Penn State presents some of those problems but the backs are tremendous. You have to be on point with your tackling.

On coaching against wide receiver screens

It starts with proper alignment like I alluded to before. There's a couple of times against Indiana where we weren't aligned quite the way we wanted to be. You gotta clean that up in terms of making sure that you're matching numbers with numbers and you have the proper width to defend those plays. After that, the eyes are what's really important. You have the screens and the screen and go. If you're not looking at the right spot and not doing your job in terms of what you're supposed to be defending, you can open yourself up to the fake screen and they throw the seam or the wheel route. It starts with alignment, then eyes and, after that, the ball is actually thrown out there you have to have great block destruction, play with your hands and be able to be physical as a defensive back group and tear off blocks and be good tacklers. It all kind of works together, there's not really any one part that's more important. Kind of one at a time there in making sure you're setting yourself up for success and then can finish the play.

On Gemon Green

He's a guy, really from when Coach Clink got here, was a guy that got better, and better and better. There was a point, I don't remember the specific game, but probably somewhere through the middle of last season, he really took off. He's playing with his length. He's a really tall guy. Very, very long arms. When he plays with great technique, it's really difficult for a guy to get off the line of scrimmage when he plays square. It's really hard for guys to operate. He's grown a lot, technique-wise, and confidence-wise. Coach Clink has done a phenomenal job coaching him. Gemon, he's so mature and he's really on top of it mentally. He works his butt off. Has learned the defense and has taken it a step further in calling things that a corner wouldn't typically notice. The splits, the backfield sets, the tight end alignments. He's really a step ahead of the offense so I think you're seeing that confidence and preparation show up in the confidence and speed that he's playing with.

On Rod Moore

Rod's an ascending player. Had a great season last year and he's bigger, he's heavier, a little bit sturdier. He's all the same things as he was last year but just taken to another level. He can cover, he can play all the coverages. He can play man, he can tackle. He's an unusually good tackler for a guy who is not particularly bulky. He's a bit more of a wiry build but he's very, very strong and tackles with good technique. He's a guy who is a very well-rounded safety. Him and Makari, together, those two, R.J., they give you a nice trio of guys who can do everything. If you have that, it gives you so much flexibility and keeps you out of bad spots when each guy can cover for the other one, some guy can go to the post and another guy can go down into the box. You have a lot more flexibility and you're not covering up for weaknesses. Rod's a big part of that.

On Will Johnson getting more of an opportunity

Will certainly is. He's playing a good amount of snaps every week. He's a guy we're not afraid to throw in there into the mix. It's a bunch of guys, there's depth there and you need that. You really need to develop that depth and the only way of doing that is playing guys so that's something I've learned on the defensive side with Clink and Coach Minter, just how important it is to get guys into the game. They get in, they have some good plays, some plays that maybe aren't so good, they learn from it and they get better. If you don't play them, you'll never know. Inevitably, in this conference and some of the battles you face in some of these games and the snap counts get really high, you're going to need depth. That's something that's been really apart of and to witness is how you go about building that. Those guys are doing a great job so far.

On the goals set for special teams

We're not a huge goal group. We have four goals for every game and the four are very, very basic. The first is to have the ball and not give the ball up. No mishandled snaps, no fumbles. If it's a hands opportunity, you recover the ball. 100% possession. The very first thing is to do no harm. You want to try to make place but, at worst, let's not screw anything up. Not that you're playing scared but that's kind of the baseline of the unit, let's be really smart and understand how we can help the other phases. We don't want to have any penalties, we've been poor in that regard this year. I think we have four in six games which is disappointing, it's something we're working on and trying to emphasize and improve. We want to hold the opposing kick return unit, hold them inside the 25. If they decide to return it. We want to have no punt return yards. We've had a few but, overall, we've covered pretty well. We don't do a ton of goals. The thing that is more relevant is that every week there's certain keys to the game in terms of who are you playing, is it a really dynamic returner, does he have a certain style of running that we need to make sure we're aware of and we cover appropriately or is there a particular punt rusher, whatever it may be. There's particular keys on each phase that we'll key in on.

On whether he believes he has the best pair of kickers in the country

Absolutely. I have total confidence in that and so much faith in those guys and the operation in general. They're such pros every day. As they go about their business, their preparation is fantastic. Just the day in and day out through the week and you get to game day, the poise and the maturity. They hold themselves to an extremely high standard and overall. So far they've played at a really high level and just looking forward to continuing that.