UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State (6-3, 3-3) welcomes the Wisconsin Badgers (6-3, 4-2) to Beaver Stadium. The game is slated for noon (ET) on ABC or the Penn State Sports Network. Here's what we learned from Tuesday's media availability.
1. Saturday marks THON Day, which celebrates the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. Penn State will wear THON stickers on its helmets and the Penn State student section will wear yellow. Charlie Shuman, a native of New York, came to head coach James Franklin with an idea that has never been executed before. "Charlie Shuman came to us representing THON and talked about us putting a sticker on the back of our helmet," Franklin said. "I don't think we've ever done that before. Our guys are excited about that."
Added Charlie Shuman: "The executive director of THON came to me a couple years ago with that idea, and it's been a three-year process to finally get it approved and to have that come out my fifth and last year here is really exciting. At the end of the day, we're going to play a football game on Saturday but it's exciting to have all the THON families and to have THON on a national stage while we play Wisconsin this weekend."
2. Jonathan Taylor, who leads the country with 1,363 rushing yards, will arguably pose the biggest threat for Penn State on Saturday. Last week, the sophomore ran for 208 yards and three touchdowns against Rutgers. "Not only is he going to be able to get 4 to 6 yards a carry," said James Franklin. "He also has the ability to go 70 behind that offensive line."
Added safety Garrett Taylor on Wisconsin's running back: "I think it's going to start up front and I think our guys are going to do a great job of giving Wisconsin hard looks and getting knocked back off the ball and I think we're going to come out with the right intentions on defense."
Taylor, who's averaging 151.44 yards per game, was held to a season-low 46 yards against Northwestern October 27.
3. Come Saturday, Penn State will face the fifth-best total defense in the Big Ten. With that, the Nittany Lions will look to establish Miles Sanders and their ground game. "Miles has shown that he can be a big play back in this conference and that he can carry the load and get you the tough yards, as well as the big plays," Franklin stated. "It's going to be very important that we find a way to establish the run game, again, so there's not so much on the shoulders of Trace McSorley."
4. After suffering an uncharacteristic loss to Michigan last Saturday, resiliency was key for James Franklin and his program this past Sunday. "I want to make sure that we're doing a good job of managing those losses and how we approach them and how we talk about them and how we recover and move on to the next game," said Franklin. "I think the meetings were good. All the feedback I got from the coaches was really good. The team meeting was really good. The offense, defense and special teams meetings were really good. I thought the messages were great. I thought the questions were really good."
5. Election Day – "One thing I think we've done a good job as coaches, but more so in the last year, we've hired some off-field positions that are dealing with these things and they are dealing with them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, whether it's internships, whether it's job fairs, whether it's voting, whether it's all these types of things," James Franklin said. "I think it's a big part of what we do and how we do it. I think obviously, you know, for us and for the players and for fans, we understand the importance of the wins and the losses but in college football, we also have a very, very strong responsibility of making sure that we're educating our guys beyond just the game; that football and college athletics is a complimentary piece of what they are learning in the classroom, and then on top of that, that we're also having discussions about all these other social issues and challenges and things that we also have responsibilities for."
