Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1051898
tice every single day. It's how they are in meetings. It's how they are in terms of taking their tests. Sean is one of the more competitive guys that I've been around. I think I men- tioned to you guys before – very competi- tive, very prideful, which early on, it made him difficult to coach sometimes. Tommy Stevens was like that as well. They feel so strongly about what they're doing, they've got conviction, which I think is a great thing. So it's that fine line. One of the things that we talk about all the time is embracing your role. He was doing some things on the sideline from a leadership perspective, and one of the guys was jabbing at him, kind of poking fun and he kind of turned around and snapped at the guy – "I'm maximizing my role, I'm going to do everything that I can to help this team" – and he was deadly se- rious locked in. That's how he is with everything. If it's a race, he wants to win the race. If it's academics, he wants the highest GPA. It's all of it. I'm very pleased with his makeup. I'm very pleased with our quarterback room in general. It's been really good like that. And I think obviously Coach [Ricky] Rahne has had a big part in that, but I think Trace in general has had a big part in teaching the young guys in the room and guys behind him. He's going to leave a legacy from that standpoint. We talk about that a lot – leaving a legacy in how you prepare, how you work, how you train, how you treat people, all those types of things. And these veterans that we have, they've done that at a very, very high level. Trace tied the all-time win record, I think, as a starting quarterback in Penn State history, right? And there's no more important stat for a quarterback. So I think those guys have been fortunate. I know it's not always fun sitting behind someone. But I think [to play behind] a guy who's done it at such a high level, both on and off the field, there's tremen- dous value in that, too. Do you think your defense has gotten the credit that it de- serves this season? You were mentioning some of the stuff against Wisconsin earlier. And what areas specifically do you think Brent Pry has done a good job this season, in partic- ular? The thing that I would say about our defense, and coach, is that we've got guys who aren't selfish – offen- sive coaches, defensive coaches, special teams. You have to be careful. Sometimes you get in a situation where coaches are making decisions based off of stats. They want to be able to say that we have these stats. They want to be able to, on Sunday, whether you won or lost, be able to focus on these stats. And I think we've got a group of men – I think Brent's a great ex- ample – who are about winning. And there are some things and choices and decisions that are made that probably go against stats, go against having really strong stats offensively, defensively, spe- cial teams, and we're making decisions that we think are in the best interests of the team: winning football. It's funny, sometimes I'll go in to rein- force a point with stats. And I'll bring up something about player rotation and how this guy's leading us in tackles and things like that, and Brent's not concerned about N O V E M B E R 1 4 , 2 0 1 8 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 11 Franklin has a word with the head linesman during Penn State's game against Wis- consin. The Nit- tany Lions defeated the Badgers, 22-10. Photo by Steve Manuel