Penn State Football
James Franklin Postgame Press Conference
vs. Wisconsin – November 10, 2018
Opening Statement
First of all, I want to thank all the fans that came out and have come out all year long and supported us. Very, very fortunate to get a big win against a really good opponent in Wisconsin. I think the story of the game is we kind of won all the things that we talked about weekly. Drive start battle, we won that. The turnover battle, we won that, which I think was critical today. The penalty battle, very disciplined. We only had three penalties in the game. We won that. And then the explosive play battle, we won that as well. I think we could be more explosive offensively. But, I think that's the story of the game when you are able to do all those things you're going to have a chance to be successful. A couple of things that stood out, Miles Sanders surpassed 1,000 rushing yards for the season, so that was great. Fourteen straight winning seasons here. And then Robert Windsor career-high two sacks. He's from Wisconsin. I know he's in the locker room talking about his mom flying back to Wisconsin and how happy she is. We're happy to get a win. We'll enjoy it for the night. Things, obviously, that we have to get cleaned up, there's no doubt about that. We're going to enjoy the win, and then obviously wake up tomorrow morning and get started on our next opponent.
Q: After the way the running game has struggled in the last two games, can you describe the offensive line and Miles, what they have been through, and how they responded today?
A: We felt like we had some opportunities today in the running game based on our plan. Some of the opportunities that we felt like presented itself based on their defensive scheme and what we try to do offensively. We were able to take advantage of that. Obviously, Miles rushing for basically 160 yards and a touchdown was great, gave our offensive line some confidence, also help our offensive line when we are able to beat people up on first and second down in the running game it will help us in protection in the long term. So, obviously, really important for us to get the running game established, and we were able to do that today.
Q: What is Micah Parsons doing to earn his snaps?
A: He just keeps getting better. I think the other thing is he just continues to build trust in the coaching staff. With Micah, it's all of it. It's me. I'm on him all the time. It's just all the other things. Don't take this the wrong way, I'm proud of him. But, he just keeps growing up every sing day. Coach [Brent] Pry puts a lot of emphasis on trust. Trust with the defensive players, with what we run. He's obviously very talented, and he obviously has a lot of trust built up in Koa Farmer and the amount of time they've been together, as well. Micah just keeps earning that every single day. More and more trust by how he's going about his business. He's been killing it academically since he's been here. But, just our approach, how we do things, how we meet, how we conduct ourselves, he's just getting better every single day. So, as he continues to build trust with Coach Pry off the field in all those areas in terms of preparing himself like a pro and not just relying on his ability. That's what you're seeing as the seasons going on. That was part of the plan to allow his reps to spike up. I thought our defense and Micah played well. Except for the opening drive. That's the fourth ranked rushing offensive in the country, and I thought the size of the opening drive, I thought we played really good.
Q: How would you evaluate what Trace McSorley did today, everything that he has gone through the toughness he's able to display?
A: He's a warrior. He really is in every sense of the word. He's productive. He's positive. He's a leader. He's determined. Obviously, he's gotten banged up this year, the second half of the year. He's missed some plays, but has been able to come back and still play at a pretty high level. We're fortunate to be able to have really good leadership and really good morale and chemistry in our quarterback group. Tommy [Stevens] and Sean Clifford are really doing a great job as well. Sean did some things on the sideline today I thought were really impressive as well. We've got a good group there and led by Trace, but he's been a warrior for us not just this season, but for four years.
Q: Today you guys dominated the time of possession and ran 54 offensive plays, what kind of impact did that have?
A: I think it was big. Obviously, that wasn't a huge part of our plan. I've been telling you guys that before. It was more about us being more efficient on third down offensively and more about our defense being able to get off the field at third down. It wasn't like we went into this with a different plan. But, literally, us just being better on third down on offense and us getting off the field on defense, that was the difference. That was the difference, to me, with the time of possession. Obviously, against that opponent that is important. Very similar how we tried to take the ball and be able to get up by some points, hopefully, early on was the plan. So, we could force them out of the style that they wanted to play. We weren't able to necessarily to do that offensively. We moved the ball, but we had tendency to stall out in the red zone area.
Q: I know you were scrupulous about taking it one game at a time but now looking back, in retrospect, considering this defense and how many plays they have defended against Indiana, Ohio State, Illinois, and knowing the stretch you had coming up, are you at all surprised how well they stood up over these last three games against power football?
A: Yeah, I think its a great point. It is very impressive. Our defensive coaches have done a great job. I think as a coaching staff we do that, for us to just act like that wasn't going to be an issue. We made major changes in practice this week so we could cut back. Not necessarily on reps, but the time we were out there and invested a little more time in meetings. You need to do that late in the season anyway, but magnified because of the amount of reps our defense has gotten. I think the other thing, back to what we just talked about, being better on third down on both sides of the ball has helped as well.
Q: Miles eclipsing 1,000 yards on the season today. From week one how have you seen him grow into his role?
A: He is very confident, his leadership has been excellent, with the offensive line, with the offensive side of the ball. People may say at times he might have been frustrated but you never saw that. You never saw that with his teammates. One of the things I am very proud of is guys on our sideline never with bad body language or demeanor, which is very important to us. I think Miles is a great example of that. Would he love to rush for more yards week in and week out? No doubt about it. Are some of those things in his control and some of those thing out of his control? No doubt about it. He has been just a tremendous teammate, couldn't be more positive and I am proud of him. Those are one of those things as the head coach that I look at, that I take a lot of pride in. How our guys, how our players, how our coaches conduct themselves through adversity, through success, all of it. He is great example of that. He's just matured in so many areas from the young man we went and recruited. Obviously mom has done an unbelievable job raising him but he's really matured as a football player, as a person, as a student and I couldn't be more proud of him.
Q: How much do you plan into hometown recruiting and play of the game with [Robert] Windsor playing with the Wisconsin background and everything into a game like this where he plays one of his best games of the season? For future aspects going into recruiting, how does that play into the game and into the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday practice. How much does that play into what you play?
A: Yeah, Rob was our defensive captain this week, so we knew this game was going to be important to him. He just got done saying in the locker room with the guys that he's 2-0 and we are 2-0 versus Wisconsin, so that allows his family to go back home and wear their Penn State sweatshirts to the grocery store and things like that. Rob played extremely well, had two sacks and did some really good things, so we are excited about him. I don't know, I lived in De Pere, Wisconsin, for a year, I don't know if necessarily because of this we are going to go recruit Wisconsin heavily but if they have some players that are interested in Penn State we are certainly going to be interested in them.
Q: The freshman wide receivers had a bigger game this week that before, obviously out of necessity with Juwan [Johnson] being out. How did they earn that and do you expect that to continue even when Juan comes back?
A: I think it is a lot like you saw with Micah, Jahan [Dotson] just continues to do really good things and get better. He did some really good things today. He is very confident and very relaxed. The game doesn't seem to get too big for him. He's been that way since day one when we decided to burn his redshirt. The great thing about today was we had him and KJ [Hamler] stacked in the slot position and this week we gave him the opportunity to learn a new position, z, and he learned it and played really well. That creates some flexibility for us. We are always trying to recruit talented athletes that are smart both on and off the field, because it allows us some position flexibly if we have to move guys around to get the best 11 guys on the field or the best three receivers on the field.
Q: What happened on the fumble at the end of the game there?
A: I haven't had a chance to talk to Tommy about it but obviously we had a mis-communication with the motion. As a head coach that is the thing you struggle with, we had a great win and you want to enjoy the win but the game didn't end the way you want it to end. As you guys know, I take great pride in how we handle situational football, so the game didn't end the way we wanted it to end. I haven't had the chance to Tommy yet but from what I saw, we just mis-timed the motion in our moving offense.