Penn State coach James Franklin took the podium on Tuesday afternoon to speak about various topics following the Nittany Lions’ loss to Ohio State this past weekend. While every quote often needs context, interpretation and translation from coach speak to the outside world, sometimes it’s good just to get it all from the horses mouth. As a result, here are several topics Franklin spoke about on Tuesday that are worth their full unfiltered responses. From the receiver room to offensive identity, Franklin touched on plenty in the fallout of Penn State’s first loss of the year.
On offensive identity: I thought our identity was staying on schedule converting on third downs and then either converting on third downs or going for it on fourth down situations. I feel like that had been our identity for the season. We have a lot of respect for their short yardage defense and how they were defending it, but we did not do that. We did not either convert on third downs like we had been doing or put us in a situation where we were in fourth and short to go for it.
I think to me I guess what I’m saying is our lack of success on third down really kind of changed the game. We just didn’t have enough opportunities. We couldn’t get into a flow. Didn’t get enough touches for people. When you have the lack of success that we had on third down, it’s hard to get anything going. Obviously, for the most part, our defense was able to do that to them as well. What they did a good job, obviously, No. 18 was a difference maker in the game.
On Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton usage: I felt after the game that those guys should have got more touches. When I looked at the run/pass, it wasn’t as far off as I thought it was, but when you keep going three and out, that’s an issue. You just don’t have enough touches.Just like earlier in the year I think we had a game where we had 45 minutes of possession time. Why? Because our defense was getting three and outs, and we were having a ton of long drives. So you are able to get the opportunities and touches for everybody.
In terms of explosive plays, that’s a combination of us doing a better job of blocking on the perimeter. That’s a combination of us being able to make the safety miss. You either make a miss or breaking tackles. That’s also back to what I’ve discussed with you before about how people are defending us. When you have guys on the outside and you have the production on the outside that concerns people, it changes how people defend you. People are going to load the box up and not allow Catron and Nick to beat you until you prove you can do it on the outside with your quarterback and wide receivers and somewhat the tight ends. I think it’s a combination of those things more than anything else.
On emotions players showed after the game: Yeah. I mean, you know how hard we work and how much we invest, and that’s the players and that’s the staff and that’s all of us. That’s the fans. That’s everybody. When you look at some of the ways that we’ve lost to these people, whether it’s by a point or whether it’s by a possession or one score or however you want to look at it, however you want to term it, those are hard as well because you feel like there’s opportunities.
Yeah, it’s tough, but what we have to do is we have to move on and learn from it and get back to stacking days and finding ways to get wins because I also believe that we’ve got to make sure that this loss doesn’t get us twice, which I think it has happened in the past because I think of how everybody in the Penn State community responds to these things. So, yeah, I think there’s a ton of raw emotion, which when you take how much everybody invests and how much everybody puts into these things and the physical impact and the emotional impact, yeah. In some ways I would be more concerned if it wasn’t.
Creating separation at receiver: Yeah, production in the passing game I think is obviously something that we’re putting a ton of emphasis on creating separation. I think that’s one of the things that is important when I’m evaluating is, okay, if you are just evaluating the tight ends and the wide receivers in the passing game, sometimes the quarterback can impact that. So take that out of it. How much are we creating separation either on a vertical, on a run-away route, and that’s what you can do as a skill player to show that you should be getting more opportunities by the way you separate and the way you’re able to get open. Our production has not been there as consistently as it needs to be. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
Obviously there’s a lot of things factoring into it. There’s sometimes where we got somebody beat, and we give up a pressure or sack. There’s a lot of things that factor into it or the quarterback misses the throw, whatever it may be, but what I try to do as a head coach is when I’m breaking it down, okay, the things that the quarterback can control, did he control them? The things that the O-line can control, did they control them? The things that the receivers — so on for each position. To me when you are evaluating it in parts, that’s what you are looking for. We haven’t had enough production in those areas.
The receiver room development at large: The big discussion this offseason was who was going to be the third guy? Trey we lost for a couple of games based on some bumps and bruises and things like that. So all I can do is take the body of work from games, but the things that you guys don’t get to see is obviously the consistency in practice as well. That’s really what we’ve been looking for, consistency in practice of people to separate. I think you guys have heard me say very similar to how you described it, we have a group of guys that I think are all competing, but no one is separating themselves from the group, and that’s either in practice or that’s in the game reps, which you guys have been able to see.
We’re going against a really good defense every single day at practice when we go good-on-good, so it was really pretty good information to base it on. You know, how are you winning against Johnny Dixon? How are you winning against Kalen King. How are you winning against Daequan Hardy and so on and so forth? To me there’s enough information to make decisions on, and we’ve been talking for a while that people have not separated themselves. The other thing I think is difficult sometimes for the parents and sometimes for the fans to understand is you also have the things I mentioned in the beginning, the missed assignments. Sometimes you guys don’t know a guy ran the wrong route, a guy is blocking on a run play when it’s a pass play.
Those things factor into decision-making as well because you can be as productive as you want, but if you are making too many missed assignments, then it’s kind of a wash. All those things factor into it as well. It may not be even as drastic of blocking looking at the wrong signal and running — we’re throwing a pass, and you are blocking down the field. It may not be as drastic as that. It may be the details of a route. Supposed to be at 12 yards, and you are breaking it at 8 yards. It may be your landmarks to the inside edge of the numbers, and you are truly in the divide. That spacing impacts how you stress the defense and that spacing impacts the quarterback’s decision-making and accuracy. It’s all those things that go into it. Some of those things are hard for people that don’t know exactly what their job responsibilities are to judge them.
Density of playbook: I think obviously when you don’t have success, then I think the first thing you do is you sit here and say, okay, are we doing too much, and do we need to tighten the package down and get really good at certain things? It always starts with that; right? Yeah, I think we looked at that numbers of plays in each game plan, how many new ideas we’ve had at each game plan. I think we’re talking specifically about this game because up until then I thought we had done a good job of, again, playing the game the way we’ve been playing the game and managing the game and being able to score points, being able to stay on the field, converting whether it was third down or fourth down, sequencing, things like that.
Yeah, I think the first thing you do is sit here and say, do we need to narrow it down and make sure that we have these things in the run game, these things in the pass game that we can hang our hat on? I think that’s fair.
Third down: In terms of running the ball and touches, when I went back and actually looked at the numbers, that was not our issue. It was not our run/pass ratio that was our problem, especially, again, when you take the last drive or the last two drives of the game out of the equation when it was kind of normal circumstances. The issue, again, was third down. When you go 0 for 15 on third down, normal third down situations, long situations, short yardage situations, that was the issue. We weren’t able to stay on schedule. We weren’t able to get into a flow. We weren’t able to get the touches the way we would like to get the touches specifically for the running backs. That was the biggest issue.
Then, yeah, during the game what I try to do, which we’ve talked about in the past on both offense and defense, is when I feel like we’ve gotten conservative and we need to take a shot, I recommend those things. When I feel like we’ve gotten away from the run game, I make sure that we get back to the run game, whether it’s being aggressive on defense and calling a pressure or making them earn it by playing coverage on a third and long situation. So same operation that we’ve had here in years past. That really hasn’t changed during the game. Our biggest issue in my opinion in that game was third down, and that impacted everything else.
