Talk to any coach and he or she would take more practices in a heartbeat.
Penn State basketball opens the season 6-1 with 7 games in 14 days and Pat Chambers wants more practices.
Penn State hockey opens the year 5-1-2 and Guy Gadowsky wants more time to practice.
So it’s not too surprising that James Franklin is in the same boat. Don’t think he isn’t excited about playing in a bowl game — just be aware that his goals are a lot more of the big picture variety. A bowl game is icing on the cake. Extra practice is what can help you develop for next season. One is a nice reward, the other helps you go for an even bigger and better reward.
“I think that’s really how we’re looking at it. The big picture,” Franklin said from his Pittsburgh hotel on Sunday night. “The short term obviously it let’s us keep our family together for a little bit longer and continue this season, but big picture the extra reps and practice and things like that is very very important.”
It’s a practice plan Penn State has had in place since the season started. In fact, the Nittany Lions have been prepared for practice schedules linked to several different bowl options for months. And while Penn State will spend time focusing on its opponent in Boston College, really it’s about getting better at all the little things.
“We practiced already, Saturday and Sunday and we’ll practice most of the weekends,” Franklin said. “We’ll also have some of the practices during the week and then obviously the closer we get to game time we’ll get into our normal routine.
“Being able to spend the time, for us, is important, getting healthy, the working on fundamentals and technique. You have to be careful because if you have too much time you try and get cute and kind of get away from who you are, so I think you have to be careful. I think time can actually be a negative.
“That’s why we won’t really spend the entire time working just on Boston College. The first half of our bowl practices will be basically what we call program development practices, which will be like spring ball.”
That spring ball practice gives Penn State the ability to do a lot of things it doesn’t do during the year. The first team offense will face the first team defense. Second, and more importantly, third string players will get reps in practice. It’s like the blue-white game is just around the corner, except this time the blue and white will be all the Yankee colors in the Bronx come December 27th.
It might seem like a little thing, but for Penn State, practice is the only way the second youngest team in college football gets better.
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