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problems – very physical, very physical inside. Raequan Williams is massive. He's 6-4, 300 pounds. When you watch the tape and you're looking at all those thighs and legs and rear ends, I mean, they are mas- sive. The defensive end, [Kenny] Willekes, is very disruptive, as well. And then they have a middle linebacker who we think is one of the better linebackers that we've seen on tape this year in [Joe] Bachie. They are committed to it. If you look at this system with Coach Dantonio, with Coach [Pat] Narduzzi, with Coach [Jim] Tressel – I throw Narduzzi because obvi- ously they come from the same family, the same tree – they have been good on de- fense and specifically stopping the run for a long time. So they take a lot of pride in making you one-dimensional, and you know, you see that on tape, as well. Can you explain the inconsistency with the older receivers and where that's headed in your mind? Also, can you tell us where Justin Shorter's progress is right now? Yeah, we have a lot of confidence in our wide receivers. I know they want to play at a higher level and I know Coach [David] Corley wants them to play at a higher level. And they have done some really good things, but it's consistency [that is lacking]. I think between Trace [McSor- ley] and those guys getting on the same page and doing it every single day at prac- tice, that will translate into the games. We're very confident. I believe in those guys. I believe in how we do things and how we operate. So I have a lot of confi- dence. I have a lot of confidence there. Justin Shorter got banged up and got some bruises and things like that during camp and missed a significant amount of time, and I would say it probably seems like it's more significant because when you're a young guy, those reps are critical. So it's delayed some of his opportunities and slowed down some of his develop- ment, but we feel really good about that whole freshman class. That's a really good class. They have all done some really good things at times. But we also have that redshirt freshman class that factors in for us, as well. We'll just continue working with these guys and keep developing them and keep lov- ing them up, but I think that unit has a chance to be really special, and I know it's going to happen at some point. Hopefully it's this weekend. You talked a2er the Ohio State game about everyone was too comfortable being a great program and now you want to make them uncomfortable to become elite. How have you seen your captains and your team leaders take what you said and get the message out to their teammates, and how have you gotten the message out to the team? I'm going to answer the question, but you know, what I would probably say to everybody is, we had a press conference last week on the field aCer practice. Had a chance to answer some questions. I really kind of want to move on to what we did during the bye week and what we're going to do against Michigan State. I don't want to be talking about something from two weeks ago, but I will answer your ques- tion. I think it's funny, the responses to that have been interesting. I've gotten a lot of really positive responses from athletic di- rectors across the country within our own conference, from high school coaches, from recruits. There are other people that haven't liked it a whole lot. But I will tell you, one of the things we talked about with the players and with the coaches is that this is really what we've been talking about for a while. We've made some pretty good strides. Again, I think the people who cover our program closely from before we arrived to aCer we arrived and what we've been able to do the last couple years, I think it's clearly obvious to everybody that we're making great progress and we've done some things that probably people would have questioned before arriving. So I think the trajectory of the program and what we're doing is really good, but I've talked about this for a while: that, you O C T O B E R   1 0 ,   2 0 1 8 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 11 Franklin motions to his players dur- ing Penn State's game against Ohio State. The Nittany Lions gave up two late touchdowns and fell to the Buck- eyes, 27-26, but Franklin said he and his players aren't dwelling on the defeat. "You evaluate the film, you make the cor- rections and you move forward," he said. Photo by Steve Manuel

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