Blue White Illustrated

B efore Penn State began its spring practices, head coach James Franklin laid out the priorities to be accom- plished. Hoping to once again instill a sense of having to earn everything throughout the program, Franklin keyed in on the details, expectations and standards while looking to build confidence, chemistry and leadership. Defensively, turnovers needed to be created, he said. Throughout the team, situational football had to be under- stood. And offensively, Franklin cited the most obvious of the team's short- comings from the 2020 season, ball se- curity. It was an echo of a message he had delivered last year. "We've got to protect the football on offense," he had said in the midst of Penn State's 4-5 season. "The ball is the program." After nearly six full weeks of spring practices, the same has remained fun- damentally true of the Nittany Lions' offense. But when the team returned to Beaver Stadium on April 17 to scrimmage in front of a live audience for the first time since limited spectators were allowed to watch games during the 2020 season, new offensive coordinator Mike Yur- cich witnessed a continuation of the ball-security problems that had plagued the offense before his arrival. Kalen King intercepted backup quar- terback Ta'Quan Roberson for a pick- six, and the freshman cornerback also snatched a Sean Clifford pass in red zone work at the very conclusion. In addition, a fumble in the backfield was recovered by Jaquan Brisker. Those problems had Yurcich vowing to con- tinue his emphasis on turnover-avoid- ance during the last week of spring practice. "Ball security is the most important thing that we've stressed. And we didn't do a very good job of that today," Yurcich said. "And so that's going to continue to be pounded always, always. "If we play smart on offense and we don't turn it over, we give ourselves a chance. If you turn it over, you have no chance, and we have to take care of the doggone football." Their failure to do that last season proved to be the Nittany Lions' undo- ing in many ways. Charged with 17 giveaways in nine games (103rd nationally), with just 10 takeaways (83rd) on the opposite side of the turnover ledger, the Nittany Lions found their inability to maintain possession to be a consistent liability. That many of those turnovers occurred in crucial moments of games, particu- larly during the 0-5 start to the season, made Penn State's difficulties that much worse. With nine interceptions, Sean Clif- ford caught a lot of flak for Penn State's turnover problems. But Franklin was careful last season to note that there Coaching staff puts emphasis on ball security | turnover-plagued 2020 season, a season in which the ball frequently looked as though it wanted to date other teams. The Nittany Lions threw nine intercep- tions and lost eight fumbles. It was a lot to overcome. Those 17 giveaways ranked 12th in the Big Ten and 103rd in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and while the total was inflated to a degree by the length of Penn State's season – at nine games, it was tied for the longest in the Big Ten – there's no denying that ball- security problems were a major con- tributing factor behind the team's first losing record in 16 years. But those offensive problems obscured another turnover issue, which was that the defense wasn't collecting all that many takeaways. The Nittany Lions fin- ished the season with just four intercep- tions and six fumble recoveries. And if the length of their season was a mitigat- ing factor on the takeaway side of the ledger, boosting the Lions' totals relative to teams that played fewer games, it had the opposite effect on the other side, making the dearth of takeaways seem even more glaring. If the Lions were play- ing more games than most of their Big Ten brethren, they should have had more interceptions and fumble recoveries than most of those teams, too. But in fact, they had fewer. They ranked ninth in the con- ference and 83rd in the FBS in takeaways. Making matters worse, unlike a lot of the problems that Penn State was forced to deal with during its strange, pan- demic-diminished 2020 campaign, this one was not confined to a single season. In 2018, they tied for ninth in the Big Ten with 20 takeaways, and even during their Big Ten championship season in 2016, the Lions were only +1 in turnover margin, with 21 takeaways and 20 give- aways. The following spring, Franklin talked about the need to be more oppor- tunistic on defense, noting that at all of his previous coaching stops, the defen- sive players rarely spent much time in the off-season catching balls from a JUGS machine. He said he was hoping to change that approach. "We've talked a lot about how if we re- ally want to improve in turnovers – which is an area where I think we can improve – then we've got to invest in it," he said. "I think the more confident that >>

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