James Franklin talks players' NFL decisions, Cotton Bowl history, health of Sean Clifford, Noah Cain
Penn State owns a 10-2 record and will make an appearance in the Cotton Bowl against Memphis on Saturday, Dec. 28. The game will be televised on ESPN at noon ET.
Ahead of the game, James Franklin — on Friday — addressed the media. He discussed numerous topics, including the offensive coordinator situation and who would call plays for the team now that former offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne is the head coach at Old Dominion.
RELATED: James Franklin announced play-caller for Cotton Bowl, discusses search for offensive coordinator
Alongside those topics, Franklin talked about the Cotton Bowl’s history, as well as his players and their potential NFL decisions for 2020:
Franklin on Cotton Bowl history: We've talked about doing some things to honor those teams (from the past). Mentions Wally Triplett and 1947 team.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Franklin: The history is significant. It's how the whole team and the whole community rallied.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Franklin: The people who know me understand that it's significant to me.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Franklin on player decisions: We'll have both, draft eligible guys who are staying and who are leaving. Some guys are ready to make a decision.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Franklin: Freiermuth meeting was interesting. His parents said they love it here. They weren't ready for him to leave. Pat said I'm not ready to leave.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Franklin: We'll have more guys announce after the game because that's what they want to do.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
More from Franklin on how quarterback Sean Clifford and running back Noah Cain are dealing with injuries:
Franklin: We expect QB Sean Clifford to be 100 percent for the bowl game.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Franklin: Clifford's better than he was at end of regular season. He's getting most of the practice reps.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Franklin on RB Noah Cain: Some of the freshmen are facing athletic adversity for the first time. He's such a competitor. Noah is a guy who loves football. He wanted to play every single week, even the first week (after his injury). But he just wasn't right. His injury lingered.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
More from Franklin on Cain: He looked really good in practice yesterday.
— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 20, 2019
Penn State’s depth chart for the game can be found here.
