What Penn State's James Franklin said during Tuesday presser
It wasn’t expected that there would be much of a story out of Bloomington during the Big Ten’s opening weekend of football action.
But here we are.
Ohio State did what they were expected to do, with a dominating win over Nebraska. Michigan put up a strong showing in Minneapolis easily beating the Gophers, like many of us thought they would. And Wisconsin manhandled Illinois in the season opener on Friday – no surprise there.
Unfortunately for Penn State coach James Franklin, there always has to be a surprise. Granted, Rutgers taking it to Michigan State and winning their first Big Ten game since November of 2017 would usually be enough, but Indiana had other things in mind.
The Hoosiers took it to the Nittany Lions and toppled Franklin’s squad with an exciting overtime two-point conversion, in an overtime that never should have happened had Penn State’s offense been smart enough to take a knee.
And Franklin was not happy about taking on the role, and he made it known in his press conference.
"It's not like you look back at that game and we didn't play hard," Penn State coach James Franklin said. "We played hard. We played with passion. We just didn't always play smart."
— Mark Wogenrich (@MarkWogenrich) October 27, 2020
JF: Penn State played really hard and with passion. Just didn’t always play smart.
— Donnie Collins (@PennStateTT) October 27, 2020
James Franklin said he wanted people who watched the game to be proud of how he and PSU's staff and players wore their masks on Saturday. "At the end of the day, is anybody talking about that? No. I get that. … Our goal is to try and do it all and do it the right way."
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) October 27, 2020
James Franklin said PSU had a player who had a false positive Saturday morning and wasn't able to play.
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) October 27, 2020
Interesting take from JF on perhaps trying to recreate atmosphere of Whiteout. Basically, they won’t try.
“We’re going to embrace that this is what the 2020 season is.”
— Donnie Collins (@PennStateTT) October 27, 2020
Franklin said the RB rotation moving forward will be like it was Saturday moving forward with Devyn Ford getting the most carries and then Keyvone Lee and Caziah Holmes, the two true freshmen, continuing to play. "This is just the nature of where we're at right now."
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) October 27, 2020
JF: Best defended Indiana. Good pressure from DEs. Secondary improved. Defended the run.
“We weren’t as consistent on offense.”
— Donnie Collins (@PennStateTT) October 27, 2020