Spring football is in the air.
And after Penn State’s first two official practices on Friday and Saturday, James Franklin couldn’t be happier.
Forget Christmas. For the Nittany Lions’ third-year head coach, this is the most wonderful time of the year.
“It’s the best time of the year,” Franklin said on Sunday.
“I actually prefer spring ball, because it’s pure. You’re not practicing for games. It’s just for the purity of the sport – the X’s and the O’s, the fundamentals, things like that.
“I really enjoy it; it’s the best time of the day. You’re not doing any of the administrative stuff or any of the other responsibilities or wearing all the hats that head coaches have to wear. It’s just being around the kids and having fun.”
It was a busy offseason for Franklin. He had to fill three assistant coaching slots after the departure of both his defensive coordinator, Bob Shoop (to Tennessee), and offensive coordinator John Donovan (fired), as well as veteran offensive line coach Herb Hand (to Auburn).
In addition, the Nittany Lion coaching staff had to learn and must oversee the installation of a new offense, an up-tempo scheme that is being installed by PSU’s new offensive coordinator, Joe Moorhead, who brought the spread from Fordham, where as head coach from 2012-15 his teams went 38-13 and averaged 36.5 points per game. Franklin’s other two new assistants are Matt Limegrover, who will coach the offensive line, and Tim Banks, who will be safeties coach and co-defensive coordinator – assisting Brent Pry, promoted to D-coordinator in the off-season.
ON THE (NEW) OFFENSIVE
The Nittany Lions return 17 starters – nine on offense, five on defense and three specialists, with the biggest loss coming at quarterback, where Christian Hackenberg was the starter for 38 consecutive games. Penn State’s practice on Friday, when the players wore only helmets and no pads per NCAA rules, was its first learning Moorhead’s offense on the field. They did so under the watchful eyes of hundreds of high school and middle school coaches who were on hand for Penn State’s Spring Chalk Talk Clinic, held Friday and Saturday.
For Franklin, who played both scholastically and collegiately in Pennsylvania (with and against many of the prep coaches in attendance), relationships are everything. However, he had some trepidation Friday afternoon around 4:30 p.m., when his players took the Lasch outdoor practice fields.
“I came out and thought, ‘Maybe this wasn’t a great idea to have the coaches clinic on the first day with a brand-new offense,’” said Franklin. “I thought maybe we should have waited, just because we didn’t know how it was going to work the first day. We hadn’t run a play yet in the new system.’
“But it went well, all things considered. You’re not in pads, so you’re limited in what you can do. By NCAA rules you can only be in helmets the first two practices, but I thought we got a lot done. The feedback I got from the high school coaches was really good. They were impressed. They thought the chalk talk and clinic went well.”
Franklin was impressed by the first-day performance of his squad, a young group that is comprised of mainly underclassmen he has recruited over the past 27 months.
“More than anything it’s about laying the foundation and building confidence,” said Franklin on Sunday, a few minutes before addressing a banquet sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame at The Penn Stater Hotel.
“Defensively, we’re obviously much further ahead,” he said, alluding to the installation of the new offense, his second in three seasons at Penn State and their third in the past four seasons for the older Penn State players. “We’re not skipping a beat in that perspective. The kids had obviously prepared and the coaches were very, very organized.”
A COORDINATED EFFORT
Franklin’s assistant coaches comprise a staff that is 33% new – well, new to Penn State. But not to Franklin, Pennsylvania or even the Big Ten. Or coordinating an offense or defense, for that matter.
The trio of Shoop, Donovan and Hand have a combined 70 years of college coaching experience, with 26 of those as coordinators and three as a head coach (Shoop at Columbia).
The new troika of Moorhead, Limegrover and Banks has a combined 66 seasons of college football coaching experience under its collective belt, including 34 as coordinators and four as a head coach (Moorhead at Fordham). Both Limegrover (Minnesota) and Banks (Illinois) coached in the Big Ten at their last stops, while Limegrover and Moorhead are Western Pennsylvania natives and have known each other since they were kids. Banks, for his part, coached with Franklin at the University of Maryland in 2003-04, when Banks was inside linebackers coach and Franklin coached the wide receivers.
“They’re doing good. I think that has gone extremely well. They’re all so experienced,” Franklin said. “When you think about it, we lost three assistants – two of which were coordinators. But we replaced three assistants with a head coach and two coordinators. And both were Big Ten coordinators. Tim had been a coordinator at Illinois for five years and Limegrover had been a coordinator at Minnesota for five years and had been an offensive coordinator for 16 years for coach (Jerry) Kill. It helps that I have a connection with Tim and that the other two guys have strong, strong Pennsylvania ties — which is extremely helpful. And they want to be here.”
Limegrover is in his 26th year as a college coach, with stints as an offensive coordinator at Northern Illinois and Southern Illinois in addition to with the Gophers. Banks has been a college coach for 21 seasons, and before Illinois he was a coordinator at Cincinnati and Central Michigan. Moorhead’s 19 years as a college coach include offensive coordinator positions with UConn, Akron and Georgetown.
SPRING PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This spring, Penn State has an NCAA-allotted 15 official practices. No. 3 is on Monday, followed by practices tentatively scheduled this week for Wednesday and Friday. The rest of the Nittany Lions’ practices are tentatively scheduled for March 28 and 30; and April 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13 and 15. Penn State’s Blue-White Game scrimmage — scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 16, in Beaver Stadium — will be its 15th and last practice.
The Nittany Lions practiced outside on Friday, which is a trend that Franklin hopes will continue, although they did go inside Holuba Hall on Saturday.
“Where the weather really affects things more than anything else is special teams — going outside impacts how we punt and kick and those types of things,” Franklin said. “The fact that we were able to get outside is unusual given the spring ball weather conditions over the past few years. We hadn’t been able to get out this early.”
