Penn State Football: Franklin Talks Playing Barkley, Hackenberg Late In Blowout

With only minutes remaining in Penn State’s loss to Ohio State this past weekend, the Nittany Lions trotted out a hobbled Christian Hackenberg and a healthy but recovering Saquon Barkley on to the field.

Of all the moments during the close game turned blowout, this was perhaps one of the more perplexing ones. Penn State had lost by this point in the game. The comeback bid had fallen short. The Nittany Lions had nothing to gain and were only one play away from leaving Columbus with yet another injury on their hands.

Losing to the No. 1 ranked team is no big deal. Losing your quarterback or your star running back in meaningless garbage time. That has long term implications.

So asked three times about it on Tuesday, James Franklin addressed the decision, or at least gave some general thoughts on the whole ordeal.

“There’s a fine line. Is there a point where you need to do it? Yes. Does it go against my nature?” Franklin said.

“Me and you in the off-season, we’re going to play a pickup basketball game. Me and you. You and your buddies in this room and my staff, and it’s going to be fun. You bring your camera. You can’t bring anybody else but the people in this room. You’re not going to go see Chambers. You can pick from this room and I’m going to pick my guys. I’ll tell you, whether you’re up by eight or it’s even, I’m going to come after you. That’s just kind of who I am.”

“So I get the point, and I agree with what you guys are saying to a degree. There’s just that fine line, and there’s not an exact point, there’s not an exact time, it’s just the right thing to do. You’ve got to figure out when that is. But what I’m telling you is the personality that I want this team to take on is that we are going to fight you from the opening whistle to the last whistle and see what happens.”

“…I understand the discussion. I’m just telling you my nature, it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to wave the white flag.”

It’s hard to wave the white flag. Perhaps all Franklin needed to say.

This time it didn’t come back to haunt him. Penn State made the trip back to State College as healthy as ever. And maybe Franklin knew that keeping his starters in was the best way to keep the game close, maybe he hoped to get Barkley a few more yards, enough for a 200-yard rushing outing. Maybe the perception of being competitive to the very end was a benefit worth gambling on.

Whatever the case might be in Franklin’s mind, it seems like a risk too big to be worth taking. Pride or not, live to play another day, losing your best players in a blowout looks far worse than losing a game you’ve already lost.

Although for the next two weeks, if this comes up again Franklin will have bigger problems on his hands than simple player management.