Interim Penn State head coach Tom Bradley held a press conference on Monday morning in advance of his team's Jan. 2 matchup with Houston at the TicketCity Bowl in Dallas. The topic of quarterback Matthew McGloin's altercation with teammate Curtis Drake was raised almost immediately.
"Matt's the quarterback, he knows better," Bradley said. "He's called me up and apologized to myself, the coaches, the team and other people. He's disappointed that it got that far, but sometimes that does happen. The guys are competitors; during practice there was a play they were talking about. They just want to win."
The coach said McGloin's status will be day-to-day as he waits for clearance to return to practice from team doctors. He's also unsure of whether McGloin will remain the starter once he is physically able to play saying "We are going to talk about that."
Bradley decided to start and play McGloin almost exclusively after taking over head coaching duties from the fired Joe Paterno on Nov. 9. Backup Rob Bolden, the starter for the first half of the season under Paterno, played sparingly in mop-up situations.
Moving forward, Bradley doesn't think the incident will have too many lingering effects on this team, noting an occasional scuffle isn't unheard of on a college football team.
"I wish it wouldn't have gone that far," Bradley said. "But I have to be honest with everyone here. I've been in this for 33 years. I've seen fights before. We've had them on the field. It does happen. I'm not going to sit here and say it never happens because it does. This is just an unfortunate incident here where we had a young man get hurt."