Penn State Football
Head Coach James Franklin Postgame Press Conference
vs. Purdue – October 5, 2019
Opening Statement
Like always I want to thank you guys for coming out to cover Penn State football. Like always I want to thank our fans, I thought we had a great environment, ended up being great weather. I thought obviously we came out and really started a very similar way we ended last week. Defensively, we are doing some special things right now. It starts up front when your defensive line can stop the run and pressure the quarterback for four downs. When you can get 13 tackles for a loss in a game, get 10 sacks and hold someone to -19 yards rushing. We are playing championship level defense and we've been doing it for a number of weeks. Very, very pleased and impressed with that. When you have a young kid like Noah Cain who continues to get better and play with more confidence. He is very decisive in how he runs. He sticks his foot in the ground, he gets force out, he breaks tackles. He'll get a 16-yarder, then a 12-yarder, then a four-yarder and then a three-yarder, he is just very consistent. He's always following forward. I thought we were doing really sharp offensively until the interception then backed that up with a turnover on special teams and then we were just inconsistent from that point on. Overall, we're pleased. There was a lot of talk about some of the guys they were missing in the game and you know, I don't talk about injuries but there were some guys we were missing as well but we are happy to get a convincing win here in Beaver Stadium. We continue to get better on third down on defense, we continue to get better on third down on offense, so that's positive. But, obviously, there are some things we have to get cleaned up on Sunday and Monday so that we have an opportunity to be 1-0 next week. We are going to enjoy this win and we are going to celebrate this. There are going to be a bunch of people in town, obviously there are a bunch of people on campus. I told our guys to go out and enjoy themselves but no issues whatsoever. So I am asking the 250,000 people that are in this town, to make sure there are no issues tonight. Monica the police officer asked me to make that announcement. That is no issues with football players and anyone else. Go out and enjoy yourself, have fun but no issues with anybody.
Q: James you have a lot to consider with all the running backs. You have a lot of talented guys. You did say they have to separate themselves and I think you've deferred to two or three out of the four, so what do you think now? Did Noah separate himself?
A: I am not going to announce a change or a decision on the running back position before watching the tape and studying all those things. We thought that Journey [Brown] had a few weeks where he did some good things to move him to the top of the depth chart. Obviously, after today you could make some arguments to put Noah at the top of the depth chart. I don't know if we've gotten to the point where someone's consistent in practice and in games that separated themselves from the pack, so I still think we are going to play four guys. But there could be a guy that's the lead starter. So, I think what we did is the guy who is the starter got two series then we went one-and-one after that, but we'll see. I don't want to sit here and proclaim decisions to be made before we have discussed them as a staff or with the players.
Q: In general without talking about these guys, in all sports there are different models of how you treat depth, for instance in baseball there used to be one reliever for a game with five pitches, can you see that happening with running backs?
A: I do see that. Football has changed as well to where you better have three backs. We're in a situation where we think we have four. I think Devyn Ford did some really good things too, so we have some guys we believe in and they're all playing at a high level. Coach Seider has done a really good job with those guys, as well. So, we'll see, we will continue to evaluate, and the good thing is we have someone stepping up each week. It's not always the same guy.
Q: James you said the offense was inconsistent. You scored 28 points in the first 16 minutes; did you think the play calling by design was less risky because of the way your defense was playing?
A: I didn't feel that during the game. We took some shots down the field, didn't hit them early in the game. We didn't really throw the ball down the field, but we threw it on time. We were able to get separation, make people miss and take a 12-yard throw 50-yards. Explosive plays can come a number of different ways, they can come from throwing over their heads or its being able to run great route pace with separation and throw on time. We just didn't do that as much in the second half or we would get pressure or a hold or something to throw us off our rhythm. I did not feel that during the game, but we didn't execute. They basically just missed a few and we made some adjustments. But we weren't as clean with our execution. I thought last week for four quarters we really played a complete game. It felt like maybe after getting those early points, that maybe we took a deep breath and exhaled, and we don't live like that around here. We play for four quarters, six seconds at a time and be aggressive for four quarters. We'll look at the tape and see.
Q: Sometimes noon starts can be tricky with getting off to a slow start. That wasn't the case today. You mentioned that you thought it was a continuation of the finish of last week's game. Can you pinpoint to why you got off to such a good start? Maybe Homecoming or confidence from last week?
A: I think we're a confident football team right now. I do. I think we're doing some really good things. Really all three phases. I think we can be a little more consistent on special teams, a little more consistent on offense but we're really doing some nice things in all three phases. One of the things that we continue to do is get guys reps. We've done that for probably more games this year than we ever have. We're ready to get back to the game that a lot of those guys can play. I think we have a confident football team. We've got a locker room right now, those guys are having fun and not taking it for granted. I'm very very pleased with our team. I'm very pleased with our coaching staff. Like I said, we'll enjoy this win tonight but we have some things that we have to clean up and that's always going to be the case whether we win by one, whether we win by seven or whether we win by fifty, there's going to be things on tape that we are going to have to get cleaned up and at this level that's what its about. It's about consistency. You have certain players or you have certain programs that are able to do it from time to time but great programs and great players are able to do it consistently. All of those guys in the locker room have a lot of talent and they can show you one out of ten times or two out of ten times that the best programs and the best players are able to do it at a high level. That's why our message is consistent. That's why our approach is consistent. So that we have the best opportunity, I think, to be able to play at a high level as consistently as possible. But if it comes emotional and you're finding ways to drive the team. You're finding ways to get people angry and turn the opponent into like a monster, we don't do that. We focus on Penn State. We focus on our process and our approach. We respect all our opponents but we fear none. We've put in some really good weeks of preparation that I think has led to a confident football team. We need to do it again.
Q: James, The special teams today. How do you think that went? Jordan Stout got off to a hot start. Could you access what has been going on?
A: I think inconsistent. You know obviously we missed a field goal. We kind of had some freaky plays. One of the things that we had an issue with is some people are a little concerned to kick it to us. So, on kickoff return the ball is all over the place. I'm not talking about just today; I'm talking about throughout the year. Whether they're kicking it deep, whether they're squibbing it, whether they're popping it up, popping it over. Same thing on punt return. People are a little concerned to punt the ball to KJ (Hamler). So now they roll out with a low dribble, then roll out then kicked it across the field which was something that wasn't a mistake and was clearly the plan based on how the coverage was first set up. So, it gives you a lot of different things that you have to account for. Sometimes when that happens, when the ball is kicked that short and its inconsistent, when you get some freaky plays like what we had today. We need to be more consistent. We need to eliminate the penalties on special teams and we need to make sure that we control the ball on special teams.
Q: KJ (Hamler) had a lot to do with your early great start with the punt returns, receiving, blocking, everything, but he didn't seem to see the ball a lot the second half. What was your opinion of that and on his decision making on catching punts in the second half?
A: Yeah again. I think we need to be cleaner there. Part of it is one minute it was a roll punt ball that would come out low and you would have to go attack it and trap it and then the next minute we'd adjust him up and the ball would be kicked deep over his head so I think they did a good job of kind of keeping us off balance there. In terms of getting him touches, it was a focus and emphasis the entire game. Again, people are going to do some things defensively, you can't force the ball to somebody but that was communicated by me and with the offense the entire game. Again, people are going to do some things, you can't just force the ball to a certain player. I think we all realized too that that is a big part of people's defensive plan each week. Making sure they have something to rack up coverage or whatever it may be. KJ, you're not going to stop him but you can limit his influence.
Q: James, it seemed like Shaka (Toney) set a tone for your defense and the way they played. Can you talk about that and how much does that open things up for some other people when they have to focus on the guy who has those early sacks?
A: Not only does he have great quickness and speed but he also is a very smart football player. He's really one of the most cerebral guys that we have. He's a guy that once he gets your cadence, now you're combining him having a really good feel for what your cadence is and now he's able to anticipate and combine his athletic ability with his mental approach to the game as well. We're very pleased with him. I do think he set the tone. If you can beat someone like that, it kind of gets in their head and creates some confidence issues and now we've got some other guys rotating in doing some things as well. We've got some packages where we have three defensive ends on the field together. You've got Micah Parsons, getting his first sack was great. I think that needs to grow for him because I think he has tremendous ability in doing it. Bunch of guys making plays. Bunch of guys doing some really great things, but Shaka's been really good for us and I think he'll continue to have a big year.
Q: We talked on Tuesday about Purdue's pressure package. Post-game now, what are your thoughts on the way your team handled it?
A: I think for the most part, I don't know what the sack total was. They had one. They had a couple other plays where they got some pressure and batted some balls down and things like that, but I think overall, we played pretty well. We had a lot of respect for their ability to pressure the quarterback especially for the Karlaftis (George) kid. It was an emphasis. I think for the most part we are playing pretty good up front. We want to get to a point where we are dominant but when you're able to give up one sack and get ten, that's a pretty good split. We'll take that each week. I do think coming into this game we had a lot of respect for their ability to pressure the quarterback and do some different things with a package team perspective and our guys are playing really well.