Penn State Football: Franklin Doesn’t See Youth As Obstacle

Penn State is a young team. The second youngest in Division I football.

But head coach James Franklin doesn’t see that as an excuse. In fact, after a few games he doesn’t even consider many of his “young” players to be all that young anymore. So when Franklin and his staff members are coaching, the obstacles and goals are the same as any other team’s.

“I don’t know if it changes a whole lot,” Franklin said of having to coach a young team. “Because where I think that you make mistakes as well is you start to get a little bit ‑‑ maybe you have a veteran team and you start saying, ‘well, we don’t have to do these things because we’re veteran.’ We don’t believe in that.  To me, we’re going to have our practice divided up no different than what teachers do when it comes to lesson plans. It’s part, part, whole. And we try to do that.”

That’s what you see when you attend practice. The media isn’t around for the meat of what happens any given day of the week, but when the cameras are rolling, Penn State isn’t working on elaborate trick plays. The Nittany Lions are almost always working on the basics as much as they’re working on the game plan.

“You’re always trying to develop fundamentals and technique with all your guys and then you go into individual drills to group drills to team drills. So, those are the building blocks that you’re trying to take. What you really hope is by the time you get to the fifth, sixth, seventh game of the year, that those guys now that have been playing are not freshmen any more. They’re veterans. They have been around it long enough.”

While Franklin may not see his team differently regardless of the players’ collective age or coach differently because of it, there is little doubt there are advantages for a team that’s accustomed to the ups and downs of college football. The biggest lesson players can learn early in their career’s though? Stay the course, believe in the system, and continue to get better.

“So, I don’t think you approach it a whole lot different with a young team compared to an experienced team, because you want to stick to your plan — if your plan makes sense. It’s just like people that maybe after a loss they go back and change their plan. The outcome should not dictate what your doing. Now you’re always trying to modify and tweak things and grow, but if your plan is right, you stick to your” plan.”

So far Penn State’s plan has worked out pretty well.

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