Aug. 4, 2016
Penn State Football Media Day Press Conference
Head Coach James Franklin
August 4, 2016
Opening Statement:
JF: First of all, welcome back I know everybody is excited like we are to get back to the season. Kind of go over some points with you and obviously open it up to questions. But excited about looking forward, not back. We've laid a really, really good foundation over the last two years and excited about what that's going to mean for us this season and moving forward.
Really feel like we've laid a foundation in a lot of different areas that's going to allow us to take some steps in the right direction and show some progress, and I think everybody really will be excited about.
We're in a position right now to have true competition at pretty much every single position on our team. That's including long snapper, that's including punter, that's including kicker. Every single position for the most part we feel like we're going to have true competition with a guy that's either listed as a starter, which is really more or less a starting point for camp, not necessarily a true starter, with a guy behind him that legitimately is pushing to fight for his job. So excited about that. I think that's going to be important.
I think the fact that we got a new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator and new secondary coach, those guys have done a tremendous job. They've been a great fit for us. They've brought some new ideas and just have been a really good fit for our staff in terms of our offense, in terms of with the kids and are more excited about those guys and what they're going to bring to the table for us in the near future as well as after that.
Celebrating all the stuff that our students have done. Performance enhancement, we've made tremendous strides there this off-season. Our team's strength index, which is our pound-for-pound strength evaluation, we're up 12 points since last summer. So we've improved. Last summer we were 6.04, this year we're around 6.16.
Our bench went up 15 pounds. Our average bench for the entire time is 348 pounds is the average for the team, which is tremendous. Our squat went up 3 pounds, which is 453-pound average for the team. Our power clean went up 12 pounds. Our team average is 315 pounds in the power clean.
So really excited. I want to thank our strength staff for their commitment and the hard work they made in the off-season. Our students did a great job from a leadership standpoint, which you guys know over the summer is critical. It's their program basically from the time spring ball ends until camp starts and we were able to get a lot of work done with player-led and player-driven initiatives so that was really good.
We've got six guys graduated before the fall, which I think you guys are aware of, [Derek] Dowrey, [Brian] Gaia, [Malik] Golden, Wendy Laurent, [Evan] Schwan and [Nyeem] Wartman-White. That's really the model. Guys are able to work on graduate school. Guys are able to get second majors and things like that. So really proud of that.
Guys, I know you're going to ask about the impact of freshmen and newcomers, and I can sit here and make projections on very little evidence at this point. But star rankings, ratings, three-star, four-star, five-star, two-star, no-star, none of those things really matter at this point. Now it's about earning the opportunity to play and earning the opportunity to impact a roster. I'll have a better idea of that after the first couple weeks of camp.
Adam Breneman, talked with Adam multiple times really since he's left the program. Talked to him probably three times over the last couple weeks. Adam had a number of injuries as we all know. [He] felt like his career was over, and with time off for a number of reasons, with time off he feels like he could give it another shot, and I think the other thing that factored into it is he tried politics for a couple months. And if anything's going to bring you back to college and bring you back to college football, it's politics. So really happy for Adam Breneman.
I think we all know Adam is a class act from top to bottom in every example of the word, and we wish him nothing but success. And I know there will be 125 players and 40 staff members that will be cheering for him.
D-line, and talk about the defense. D-line as you guys know is a critical area for us. Lost four guys that are now in NFL training camps. Parker Cothren's leadership and experience is going to be critical. He's one of the few guys on the inside with a decent amount of playing time and experience. We're going to lean on him heavily.
[Garrett] Sickels and [Evan] Schwan are ready to emerge as leaders of the group. They made a really big jump this summer and excited about those guys and where they're at. Excited about what [Kevin] Givens and [Robert] Windsor did the spring and the summer and what they're going to bring to the table. Their development's going to be huge. We've got to get those guys to speed up the maturation process as quickly as we possibly can.
And then Antoine White and Curtis Cothran need to have great camps for us. That's going to be very, very important. [It will be] interesting to see what [Brenon] Thrift and [Tyrell] Chavis are going to bring to the table. Once again, it's too early to tell. We'll see.
At linebacker, we've got to create depth. Feel really good about Nyeem [Wartman-White], [Jason] Cabinda and [Brandon] Bell, having all three of those guys with that type of experience, that type of play making ability and then excited about guys like [Manny] Bowen, [Jake] Cooper, and Johnathan Thomas, I think you guys know, we've moved [Thomas] over and he has had a great summer. So that's going to be an important position from a depth perspective, but we feel good about the first line guys.
Strong in the secondary. Despite losing two guys to graduation in the NFL, we feel like we've got experience there. You've got eight guys coming back with decent amount of experience. When you talk about Marcus Allen, Grant Haley, Malik Golden, John Reid, Christian Campbell and Troy Apke, those guys have played a lot of football for us.
What we've got to figure out is who is the fourth corner right now, and who is the fourth safety? Those are going to be two really important questions for us this camp.
Offensively the quarterback battle is what everybody wants to talk about. Trace [McSorley] has the advantage the last two years of being a back-up quarterback. There was a gap after the spring, but the gap wasn't significant. So this summer and this camp is going to give Trace the ability to keep the gap, and Tommy [Stevens] has had the ability from the end of spring ball now to close the gap. Then we'll look at the first couple weeks of camp and see where we're at at that point. Strong group of wide receivers like veterans with [Chris] Godwin, [DaeSean] Hamilton and [Saeed] Blacknall. Exciting youth like [DeAndre] Thompkins, [Brandon] Polk, [Juwan] Johnson and [Irvin] Charles.
Running backs, obviously got to be excited about that group. You've got Saquon Barkley. You could make the argument one of the top backs in the country. Mark Allen and Andre Robinson, had great springs and summers. There's excitement and confidence and there's belief in those guys. Then obviously we've got some young guys that are going to be able to compete and see what they're able to do as well.
O-line starting experience with [Andrew] Nelson, Gaia Laurent, Dowrey, [Brendon] Mahon and [Paris] Palmer. We've got that next group of guys that we really didn't have last year with the Behs, the Wrights, the Bates, the Gonzalez, and the Jenkins. And we're still at a point where we have to try to figure out where those best five are going to be.
We're going to start camp with Nelson at right tackle, which I know is different for you guys from the way it ended in the spring. There's a number of reasons why we're going to do that which I will not go into at this time. But we still need to figure out who are going to be those tackles, who is going to be the best left tackle, who is going to be the best right tackle and then the guys behind them. Then those guys that I already mentioned are truly in position to fight for time for us.
Tight ends, Mike Gesicki has done everything to have a big year for us, and we love what [Nick] Bowers, [Jonathan] Holland and [Danny] Dalton have done as well. He was here on campus during spring. Special teams competition with [Tyler] Davis, [Joey] Julius, and [Alex] Barbir at kicker; punter with [Chris] Gulla, [Daniel] Pasquariello and [Blake] Gillikin.
And Tyler Davis, I don't think probably gets enough credit. The guy is 8-for-8 last year on field goals and 11-for-11 on extra points. Probably don't talk about him enough.
And then the other guy we probably don't talk about enough is Tyler Yazujian. But you could probably make the argument maybe one of the most valuable and one of the most consistent guys on our team.
We need to find dynamic punt returners and kick returners and we're excited about that. I know that was a lot, but I wanted to cover all three different phases with you, and I open it up to questions.
Q. When do you hope to decide on the quarterback position and why, if it's two weeks in, three weeks in? Why?
JF: Quarterback situation I think obviously every program in the country and every NFL program would love to have a returning starter for the next 20 years. That's not how it works. You'd love to name a starter as early as you possibly can. I think that helps. I don't think it's the end-all, be-all. I really don't.
I think Trace [McSorley], like I mentioned before, has done some really nice things. But I think Tommy [Stevens] also has shown a tremendous ability as well. Mentally, Trace was a little bit ahead of Tommy during spring, but Tommy has had the opportunity to close that gap. So I don't think it will be in the first week.
I think we'll get in a situation where maybe by week two or game week that we'll make the announcement. I just don't know. The decision hopefully will be clear to everybody and it won't be much of a decision that we have to make as a coaching staff. It will be clear to everybody.
Q. I'm not going to ask you to project, but the process of getting Tyrell Chavis here and what he means? He looks like he's the biggest defensive tackle weight-wise on your roster right now?
JF: I don't know if he's the biggest, but, yeah, he's in that ballpark. I think [Robert] Windsor's actually the biggest that we have. Maybe not what the roster represents, but based on weigh-in yesterday. Yeah, to me there's a lot of different aspects of college football and of college athletics and for universities in general.
I'm a big believer, I think I've mentioned this to you guys before, that education is for the betterment of society. It's not an elitist thing. You have a lot of different people. You have a lot of different people, lot of different backgrounds, lot of different stories that come and play college football, that play college sports in general, or are just regular students that are working to create their opportunities. But I think whenever you're able to offer a scholarship and playing time and educational opportunity for people, I think [Tyrell] Chavis is a great story.
He's had to overcome a lot of things in his life that when the time is right and he decides to get into those things with you guys in a public format, wonderful. But to me, this is why I coach is stories like this, and I've had a number of stories over my 22 years. But just as proud as I am of the guy that comes in and in five years after a redshirt leaves with a master's degree, it's also the guys that come in and overcome a lot of things and walk out of here with a degree from Penn State as well.
So he's going to be one of those success stories and I'm really proud of him. He's had to overcome a lot. He's had to overcome a lot, and I'm really proud of him.
Q. All assistant coaches have their own styles and ways of teaching. How, if at all, is Matt Limegrover's style of teaching different from Herb Hand's?
JF: Yeah, I probably want to talk more specifically about Matt [Limegrover] and his styles. I think the biggest thing with Matt is you're talking about a guy who is from Pennsylvania and is really excited about being here. I think that is really important. I think his family is really excited about being here. He's done some unbelievable things this summer in terms of building those relationships and the bond and the trust with his team.
So, yeah, you hear about meals. A lot of guys do that. They'll have guys over to the house for dinner. Matt and his family, not recently, but they've bought an R.V. and they bring the R.V. to games because they want their family to really kind of experience college football like a fan does. So one of the things he does every summer is he has all the O-line out there and they do a tailgate, which is an awesome idea.
I've never tailgated in my life. I want to do that. I want to go next summer. Then during the tailgate they go and do a home run derby, a home run derby in the stadium. I think they went to the softball stadium and did a home run derby. They did community service projects. As you guys know we do that as a team. They did that as an offensive line. They did a community service project.
So Matt's a guy that's been in the game a long time. Not only has he been an O-line coach his entire career, but he's been an offensive coordinator for 16 years for Jerry Kill who I have tremendous respect for. Jerry called me yesterday.
He's a guy that's very seasoned. You spend any time with him, hopefully you guys over the next couple years will get a chance to have a beer at some point with him. He's just a regular guy. He's really humble. He's really down to earth. You'd never know that he had been a coordinator in the Big Ten for the last five years or a coordinator for the last 16 years. All those experiences are important.
Him being a coordinator before and going back to being assistant coach, I think you're a better assistant coach after being a coordinator. I think very similar to how Coach [Joe] Moorhead, I think is a better coordinator now after being a head coach, he's a better assistant after being a head coach. Whenever you have those experiences where you're able to look at things from a different perspective help. Help in growth. I think Matt's brought all those things to the table.
He's just soft spoken; he's easy going for the most part. Don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean he doesn't get after the guys when he needs to. But he's been great in our offensive meetings with Coach Moorhead. He's been great with the rest of our staff. And he's worked really hard at building a bond quickly with the offensive line, which is going to allow us to be really demanding and coach them hard as well.
Q. Now that you've had a lot more time to spend with Joe Moorhead, what are some specific similarities and differences you've noticed in the two of you, your personalities and football philosophy?
JF: I think very similar. That's why he's here. I think you guys knew the story. I went and interviewed Joe [Moorhead] at the National Football Foundation when the banquet got over. We met somewhere around 3 in the morning. We did the first part of the interview before the National Football Foundation. We did the second part of the interview after the National Football Foundation. At 3 in the morning he took a cab back to his house in Greenwich, Connecticut. Didn't get back until whatever time in the morning, and that's the reason we hired him. He's a great fit for Penn State.
Also me and him think very similar when it comes to the game of football, when it comes to offense, when it comes to how you approach things. Obviously he's got a west coast background when it comes to the passing game. The running game, to be honest with you, everybody's running the same runs. We ran inside zone last year. We're going to run inside zone this year. We ran gap plays last year, we're going to run gap plays this year. It's how it's packaged together. That's a little bit different. The tempos are obviously a little bit different.
I think the biggest thing that jumps out to me right away is you have a head coach that is running the offense like the head coach. He's had that type of experience. Not only does he have knowledge of Xs and Os and schemes, but is motivating and leading. Brent Pry is the head coach of the defense. Joe Moorhead is the head coach of the offense. Charles Huff is the head coach of special teams.
The assistant coaches are the head coaches of their position. We've said that from day one. But I think it's different when you've got a guy that's actually been a head coach before that is bringing those experiences now back to this role. It's been really good.
When I'm pulled out of a defensive meeting or I'm pulled out of an offensive meeting, I feel really good about what's going on when I'm not sitting in there.
So to answer your question, we align pretty much on everything, that's why he's here. Also just the fact his experiences, and then obviously his connection with the state of Pennsylvania and Penn State football helps as well.
So I love our staff. I've loved all the staffs that I've had over the last five years, but I think this staff really specific to Penn State, I'm really excited about and feel great about.
Q. Continuing on that, with Bob Shoop's departure and two new coordinators, how much does Brent Pry contribute to the continuity of your staff?
JF: Yeah, couple things. I think we had three open positions. We filled those positions with a head coach and two coordinators. That really helps you. I think Tim Banks has done a great job being a coordinator of the Big Ten over the last five years of coming in and working with Brent [Pry] and complementing Brent and being a good sounding board. It's good for defense.
And it's amazing how many players I met with in my spring end of the year meetings that I have with all of them, and how all of them were hoping that Brent was going to get the job. And once I did that, how excited they were about moving forward.
Are we going to be exactly like we were last year? No, we never would be, even if we made no changes. You're going to tweak some things, you're going to grow, you're going to play to your strengths and what your personnel dictates and those types of things. And Brent's really kind of embraced that. So I think that's helped us. I think that's helped us from a continuity standpoint.
I think whenever you can, the model that you'd love to use is that you promote from within whenever possible. Sometimes you have to go outside of your organization to hire people and bring in some new ideas and things like that. But I think whenever you can promote from within, that's the ideal situation and we were able to do that with Brent.
Brent's been very involved as the co-defensive coordinator for my entire career. Obviously when he was the defensive coordinator at the same level as the defensive coordinator that we had previously, they both had tremendous success.
Then the other thing that I do that factors into this, I think you've heard me say before, I keep a list constantly of people that we may hire in the future. Well, the other thing we do is during the spring game we have an offensive coach, usually a coordinator calls one of the defenses and have one of the assistants calls the other defense, typically with the twos. And Brent's always called the defense for our five years with the two defense against the one offense.
That's successful and an evaluation tool for me to watch that as well and evaluate some of our coaches in different roles and wearing different hats than they normally do. So I think it's been really good for us. I think it's been good for us. Brent is a fiercely loyal guy, and he's also a guy that's been around football his whole life.
You guys know his dad was my offensive coordinator in college. I've known Brent for 23 years. His first year coaching was my last year as a player. He says that he grew up in Altoona, but he's a coach's kid. You talk to him, and he was born in Altoona, went to college in Buffalo, and if you talk to him he sounds like he's from Louisiana. So he's a little confusing to talk to, but he's got tremendous experience.
Q. Defense has been a strength for you guys the last couple years, but with so much experience coming back on offense, do you think the identity of this team could shift?
JF: We'll see. Again, it's hard to say right now before camp starts truly what the identity's going to be. There is no doubt that we have a challenge that we got here. The depth that we had was obvious on the D-line. We were able, as you guys remember, we were able to move two defensive tackles to offensive line and still have tremendous depth on the D-line. That's kind of where we were at.
So it starts up front. And we were able to build our defense around a really strong D-line. We're obviously in another situation. We've got to get those guys on the D-line to mature as quickly as we possibly can. Feel good about the back seven. Then on offense, yeah, we're returning some more guys. We're returning some experience. But we're still a really young football team.
Right now, if you look at the depth chart and the way it's listed, we've got one or two returning senior starters on offense. I think it's four on defense.
We're still a really young team. One of the youngest teams in the country. We were really young last year. We're still young. Our roster is still somewhat out of whack. But, yeah, I think it's going to be interesting to see where the identity comes out.
In a perfect world, we're strong on offense, we're strong on defense, and we're strong on special teams. We want to play great complementary football. That's something that's been important to us for five years is making sure that the offense compliments the defense and compliments special teams. I think one of the factors that we've talked about is our struggles on offense last year compiled by our struggles in the punting game. That's not a great combination. I think being able to get our offense playing at a higher rate, which I think we will, and being able to be more consistent in the punting game, that's going to really help our defenses as well and put our defense in great position.
So that's where complementary football is so important, to allow some of your weaknesses time to mature, time to experience where maybe you have to lean on a different area for a week or two while one of those other areas continue to develop.
Q. Will Saquon be part of the return game because I think you hinted at that?
JF: We have the depth now that we really feel like we can use some of those players on special teams and I think Saquon [Barkley] is a part of that. What you have to decide is does the starter give you significant -- is there a significant difference between maybe a starter, whether it's a receiver, whether it's a running back or whether it's a corner being your punt return, kick return, and is his value so great on special teams over the next guy that it's worth using him? And then also, how do you feel about the next running back and the following running back or the next corner and so on and so forth? Or do you have another guy on your roster that brings similar value in the return game that it makes sense not to use one of those guys?
I think you look at Stanford and [Christian] McCaffrey who is a tremendous player that we love watching and we're forced to stay up real late to watch him, but we like watching him. That's something that Saquon is seeing. Saquon does not have any individual goals. Saquon's goal is to do whatever he possibly can to help the team win and if it's returning kicks or punts, we've got to consider doing that.
All options are open. All these things have been discussed ahead of time. And like anything, there's strength and weaknesses and risk and reward and you've got to balance all those things. I think you look at the Stanford model, what they've done, they've gotten a lot of value. They've gotten a lot of value and those are things you've got to decide.
Q. Quite an off-season for two year quarterbacks, Christian with the Jets and Jordan with JoJo. Have you been watching that? Have you been in touch with those two guys? And how important is that starting quarterback, head coach relationship?
JF: Very important. Very important. That is critical. It starts with that. It ends with that. Feel really good about it. Excited for Christian [Hackenberg] and his opportunities with the Jets. I wasn't really overly excited about watching The Bachelor, but my wife was. The excitement went away a little bit when we were in Chicago at a wedding with a bunch of former players. So we had a pretty good idea of how that show was going to end ahead of time because I talked to his buddies.
I'd love to get Jordan [Rodgers] and JoJo [Fletcher] on the sideline for a game. I think that would be pretty cool. Open invitation, Jordan and JoJo to Happy Valley. But I think that [quarterback] relationship is critical. The quarterback is the coach on the field. He's the coach Saturday night when the guys are out downtown so that relationship is really important, and obviously having Trace and Tommy and Jake [Zembiec] and the fact that I've sat in all their homes and know their parents and they've heard the same message from day one I think helps. I think it helps.
So excited about both those guys. Excited about Christian and his future. Excited about Jordan and his future, whatever that may be. But most excited about the guys that we have in our program and their futures.
Q. Depth, you mentioned more quality depth this season. Will that alter in any way your practice habits as far as hitting? How much hitting will you be doing? Is there like an NCAA mandate or anything concerning how much hitting you can do in preseason?
JF: Yeah, there is NCAA, there are Big Ten recommendations, there is also a lot of other discussions going on nationally about that. We're always going to be under those things anyway. I think I've mentioned to you guys before, I think you can get a lot of value out of walk-throughs and jog-throughs if you approach it the right way and you're detail-oriented and those things.
At the end of the day it's still critical that you get your best players to the game and that goes back to that risk-reward. So for us, you'll see some changes, but it will probably be more in time of practice and reps in practice. With the tempo, the increase in tempo, we were getting done in our 10-minute period, we were getting done our script with about three minutes left to go.
So the combination of that and just having more depth, we felt like we could increase reps that we had in each period and maximize that. That's where we're starting. Then we'll adjust as camp goes on based on how practices are going. We feel like it's the right amount of reps if we have to tweak it, all those things. So that's kind of where the science comes in.
That's where the science comes in when it comes to technology and being able to use some of those things. The tracking systems. The art is kind of a gut feel after years of experience with myself and Dwight Galt and Tim Bream and the rest of the coaches and making those adjustments when necessary.
The problem is the players also know those adjustments are coming as well. Usually cancel a practice from time to time and take them bowling or in year's past we've gone to Dave and Busters, but I don't think we have one of them in town. But we've taken them bowling and stuff like that. But they've started to figure it out.
Now as camp goes on, they start calling the bowling alley every morning to see do you have anything scheduled from this time to this time? Last year we went through all types of ways to try to -- if you don't tape their ankles before meetings, they know something's up. So tape their ankles, putting the stuff out on the field, and finding the right time to cut back, so we'll see how that goes.
That's all the things we're looking about. We're looking at hitting. There will not be an increase in hitting. There will be probably an increase in reps and maybe a little bit of time.
Q. When it comes to Nyeem Wartman-White, what did you think about his recovery process and what are you looking to see from him in this camp?
JF: It's been good. It's been really good. He's had time. You're talking about the first game of the year. You think about how that game was going before he got hurt and how it changed after. He's handled it all extremely well. Nyeem [Wartman-White] got up at the [TaxSlayer] Bowl game and shared with the team kind of his experience and his perspective, which was powerful. I actually talked about that last night with the team.
But he's worked really hard with our training staff, with our strength staff and excited. Excited about the season and getting started and getting going. But there is a difference between running out on the turf in your shorts and running out in a live period or an inside-run period where there are bodies flying everywhere and those types of things.
It's going to take some time. He hasn't played really in almost a year. So it will take some time to shake the rust off and work him back in gradually. He's had a great summer and he's excited. He's excited. I think as much as anything is his leadership and his experience. He's got tremendous football IQ. You talk to our players, he's the guy that everybody talks about about football IQ and instincts.
Q. You have three scholarships now invested in those specialists, which is what you guys have long wanted. Is 271 pounds for Joey Julius a weight that you'd be comfortable with him playing at? How do you try to monitor those other guys and build up those bigger situations in practice when you have the two scholarship freshmen vying for that job?
JF: Yeah, I'm not going to get into those types of things. I'm worried about the ball going through the up rights. I'm worried about guys being able to do their job. Some positions, that factors in. O-line, D-line, that's going to factor in. This isn't something that we're going to discuss at this time or that I think is appropriate.
I'm worried about our kickers and specifically Joe [Julius] doing well in school, being healthy, and healthy looks like a lot of different things for a lot of different people. I want him to be able to knock the ball through the up rights. As long as he can do all those things, then we're happy and he'll be happy.
Q. Saquon, you mentioned how he could be one of the best running backs in the nation. What is it about him that is different from other running backs you've coached? What makes you say that about him? He hasn't played a full season of games yet.
JF: Yeah. I think it's the number of traits that he possesses. I think when you're evaluating prospects in high school, and you're evaluating prospects on your team, and you're evaluating prospects for the NFL, you have a list of desirable traits. A lot of times you find guys that maybe fast but they're not big. Or you find guys that are fast but they're not quick, or they don't possess the change of direction or whatever it may be.
There's a number of traits. A certain size you're looking for. You'd like a guy that could be 220 pounds. Well, he's quick and he's fast, but he's 170 pounds. He's one of these guys that has a lot of the traits that you're looking for. He's got the mentality. He's got the size. He's got the quickness. He's got the speed. He's got the power. He's got the strength. He's got a lot of desirable traits. I think that's what differentiates him. The Good Lord doesn't give you everything. For whatever reason he's been given more than most.
I think the biggest thing has been his approach since day one since he's been on campus, and then as you guys got to visit with him this spring, he's handled it all unbelievably well. I think he's handled it unbelievably well because that's the type of kid he is.
I think his parents and his community and his high school did a great job in raising him. I also think that we gave him time to be a student and to be a football player and to grow before getting a chance to kind of be with you guys. He's really comfortable doing that right now. So he's just confident. He's in a great place, and I know he's excited about this season.
And not just because of him, but all the other pieces to the puzzle. The O-line and the improvements that they've made. Having a dual-threat quarterback and how that affects the defense and some of the things that we're going to do scheme-wise to take advantage of a dual-threat quarterback and our offensive line. Having veteran receivers that are threats that people are going to have to worry about rather than loading up the box. All those things. So it's an ideal situation for bringing in a new quarterback when you're able to surround him with these type of veteran guys. Make sense?