Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1276571
in the fall. The Big Ten announced in early July that its teams will play conference-only sched- ules in the hope of mini- mizing risk at a time when coronavirus cases have been rising in many parts of the country. The league's decision scuttled Penn State's eagerly awaited visit to Virginia Tech, along with non- conference games against Kent State and San Jose State, and the Big Ten sea- son seemed like no sure thing, either, with about a month to go before PSU's original opening day. It's possible that if college football is to be played during the upcoming academic year, the sea- son will have to take place in the spring. While the past few months have been strange and unprecedented, many of the on-field questions that Penn State was facing before the pandemic hit are still relevant, and are still awaiting answers. Franklin, who is coming off his third 11- win season in the past four years at Penn State, recently discussed some of those questions with BWI web editor Nate Bauer. Here's what he had to say: BWI What are your expectations for Sean Clifford in year two as a starter? FRANKLIN Well, I know it's a somewhat generic answer, but the expectation would be for him to get a little bit better in every area. I don't necessarily think he has glaring weaknesses, an area where he's got to really improve like some guys around the country. I wouldn't say that. You would like to see him throw for a lit- tle bit higher percentage, a little bit bet- ter touchdown-to-interception ratio. The work in the weight room is some- thing that will allow him to be a little more durable from a strength, size and flexibility standpoint. I think that how we use him will factor into that as well. But I think it's just [a matter of having] a little bit more confidence in his leadership role, which I see is happening anyway. So it's just that kind of stuff. It's just a little bit in every area. BWI Will there be a retooling of Sean's technique with the introduction of Kirk Ciar- rocca as his new position coach? FRANKLIN Oh yeah. It hap- pens at every position when you bring a new coach in. Everybody on the planet has strengths and weaknesses, and some coaches are better at coaching certain things than others. So there are going to be things that Coach [John] Scott em- phasizes, there are going to be things that Coach [Phil] Trautwein and Taylor [Stub- blefield] emphasize and Kirk emphasizes, that maybe are a little bit different than how it was coached before. So I think that will happen a little bit at all the positions. And you'll even have it with some of the returning coaches who have done some self-studies or professional develop- ment, talking to some other people and saying, this is something that we need to get better at and work at, so we're going to tweak some things. BWI You always push competition, but does Will Levis securely hold that backup spot? FRANKLIN I think it's hard to unseat a guy. It's hard to unseat Sean. It's hard to unseat Will. Will's been in the system now and is experienced and is a veteran backup and has a lot of confidence and has played in big games. So I think that's going to be challenging. But yeah, we need it to be a competition throughout. We need Will to be able to create compe- tition with Sean, and we need Ta'Quan [Roberson] to create competition with Will, and so on and so forth. So we'll see. The one thing that I'll say that I do find interesting is that when new coaches come in, everybody wants to say, well, it's obvious now there's a new emphasis. We get a quarterback com- mitment, and everybody says, well, it's obvious there's been a change in the philosophy of recruiting at the quarter- back position. We were recruiting that young man [Christian Veilleux] for two years before we hired Kirk. It's just amazing how people jumped to conclu- sions on things that aren't accurate. BWI Is this the most talent that you've had at running back? FRANKLIN Yeah. From top to bottom, I think it's the model for what we want at every position throughout our program. Those guys work well together. Ja'Juan [Seider] has done a really good job with the entire group. They support each other, they're friends with each other, they mentor each other, but they're also competing with each other. We've got three for sure who we feel good about and wouldn't be surprised if we have five who we feel good about. It's a good situation to be in. One of the things that we've been sell- ing as you look at the running back posi- tion, some of these running backs have put up crazy numbers in college and they almost get hurt by it because people say they don't have a whole lot of tread left on the tires. They carried the ball too many times and get too much wear and tear. So it's been a positive for us in sell- ing that these running backs are all going to get time and share the wealth. TUNNEL VISION Franklin has compiled a 56- 23 record in six seasons at Penn State. The Lions have won 11 games three of the past four seasons. Photo by Steve Manuel