Penn State Football: Franklin Confident Latest Injuries Not Season-Ending

As has been stated here and anywhere else that covers Penn State football, James Franklin doesn’t talk about injuries. Or when he does it’s either the result of a bad injury or in generally vague terms.

But that doesn’t keep people from asking about it. In fact following Saturday’s injury filled outing against San Diego State it was the weekend’s biggest storyline.

While Franklin didn’t exactly spill the beans regarding who will play this weekend, he did offer up at least a little sliver of insight for the overall status of the newest Nittany Lions to hit the injury list.

“Although I don’t talk about injuries a whole lot. To be honest with you, this early in the week, even if I wanted to, there is not a whole lot I could tell you,” Franklin said. “We didn’t know about Jordan Lucas last week until basically Saturday morning. From everything I know this morning, none of them are season-ending injuries. Anticipate getting them all back, whether it’s this week or next week, we’ll see. We’ll see how the week goes, how they heal.”

The three biggest injuries, running backs Akeel Lynch and fan favorite Saquon Barkley along with rising safety Marcus Allen. Getting those players back would be big news for the Nittany Lions even for a game against an Army team that Penn State ought to beat.

“I know they’re committed and I’ve been down in the training room every morning around 7:00 o’clock and walking around and checking on those guys and seeing how they’re doing, obviously the feedback from our medical staff. So this is why obviously the development of the guys in your program and recruiting is so important, so you have the depth to be able to handle some of these issues.”

“Obviously, they were behind those other two guys on the depth chart for a reason, but that also doesn’t mean that we don’t have tremendous faith and belief in them and think that they’re going to have an opportunity to do good things for us. So we’ll see how the week goes. We’ll see who is available for the game on Saturday.”

Franklin would later add that the staff is anticipating both starting safeties Jordan Lucas and Marcus Allen back for Saturday’s game. Lucas did not dress against SDSU and Allen left the game with an apparent arm injury midway through the first half.

In terms of Lynch and Barkley, it would be a shock to see both of them sit out this weekend. What that means for the long term though remains to be seen.

As is so often the case, the best injury update usually ends up being just waiting to see who takes the field.