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down there. I don't think there's any doubt – and it's going to be one of my messages to the team today – that we've got to play better up front on both sides of the ball. The D-line has got to be domi- nant and disruptive, and the O-line has got to be dominant and disruptive. That's something we're going to talk about this week. We've got to grow there. It didn't seem like John Reid was on the field a lot in the fourth quarter or in overtime. I just wanted to know how you evaluated his performance a5er watching the film. John played like a guy who, you know, hadn't played for a year. He did some things really well, but did some things where he was a little bit inconsistent. And I think part of that is that John's a perfec- tionist. He's like that in school. He's like that in football. It's really important to him. And he works really hard at it. But, you know, I think there was a little bit of rust on him, and we were able to chip some of that rust off. I think John's going to have a huge year for us. You said last week that you hadn't seen a whole lot of separation between the top couple of guys at the defensive tackle, and I'm wondering about the younger guys: Ellison Jordan, Fred Hansard and P.J. Mustipher. Did any of them stand out to you? Has there been any separation? I think Fred did some good things, but he played like a guy who was starting his first game. I think that showed up. Ellison showed some flashes. As you guys know, he missed some time at the end of last season, so he's coming off an injury [and is] a little bit like John Reid where he missed a lot of time and is just getting back into the groove of things. But we think both of those guys have got really bright futures. Antonio Shelton got prob- ably the most reps of his career, and he'll learn from that and he'll grow there. And then P.J. Mustipher is your unusual true freshman playing defensive tackle, and again, did some good things, but also did some things that you would probably expect from a first-time freshman start- ing in a game in front of 105,000. As we all know, that was a big question mark going into the season. They're going to need to take a big step, and we're going to need to take a big step from week one to week two, because you guys have heard me say this a thousand times, it starts up front on both offense and defense. I feel good about our defensive ends. I think we can be even more disruptive there, but I think our de- fensive tackles are going to take a big step for us this week and continue to grow and evolve. You've got three new assistants this year, which is the most you've had in a single season as a head coach, be it here or at Vanderbilt. How does that change in-game oversight from your perspec- tive and in-season evaluation as you go along? I think it changes a lot. I don't think there's any doubt about it. I think it's a little bit of the nature of the beast in college football now, so you just have to embrace it and make the best of it. But I also think that's where it's very im- portant for us to try to limit that as much as we possibly can. And the administration has been very supportive of that and we've got to continue to do that. I think that's going to be critical, because obviously the more years that we're all to- gether, the better. The players aren't hav- ing to build new relationships with their position coaches, the recruits aren't hav- ing to build new relationships with their recruiting coaches. The staff knows how I'm going to be in the fourth quarter against App State in front of 105,000 when we lose the lead late in the game. I know how they're going to react when times get tough and adversity hits, be- cause it's easy when things are going well. It's how do you all work together? What's the communication like? I think you guys have heard me talk about this before, it's like a family. Every time your family goes through adversity and you get through that adversity, you become stronger. It's no different with a football team. It's no different in the locker room with the players. It's no dif- ferent with the staff. So we were able to get through some adversity on Saturday. We'll grow from that. Players will grow. Coaches will grow. The organization will grow as a whole. But I think that's a fair point. There's probably some things that happened that I addressed during the game that I ad- dressed aCer the game and that I ad- dressed on Sunday in the meetings and then slept on it and addressed some more things on Monday to make sure that S E P T E M B E R   5 ,   2 0 1 8 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 11 Franklin attributed some of the Nittany Lions' defensive struggles against Appalachian State last Saturday to "too many missed tack- les." Photo by Steve Manuel

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