Blue White Illustrated

COACHSPEAK| EXCERPTS FROM JAMES FRANKLIN'S NSD PRESSER With the limited number of scholar- ships, how were you approaching those final few slots? How do you as- sess what you were able to come away with? As you guys know, we have holes in the roster. We're not going to fill all of our needs and our depths in one year. It's going to take a couple years until we get through these [scholarship] limitations. But with our last couple spots, we were in a situation where we might hold a couple spots for next year and roll them over. But the staff kept recruiting and kept making the phone calls and finding guys that we had relationships with to see if they were interested – only if we felt like they were a great fit for us, and we did. [I am] very proud of how the staff handled that. Again, we weren't going to dig up guys that we didn't know and didn't have relationships with in the past, and I think that really helped. Very, very impressed with the staff and the class and how we were able to close strong in the end. Were you able to fill the needs that you were looking to fill? I think the three biggest needs that I saw, just looking at the roster, the most glaring one was offensive tackle. We only have two scholarship offensive tackles in the program. That's not a position you want to be in. That was a priority for us – getting some offensive linemen with length that could play offensive tackle for us. AAer that, the way we looked at it, safety was another issue. We have a little more depth at that position but weren't heavy in terms of we're graduating three seniors at the safety position. AAer that, you look at our roster, we have a quarterback that we feel really good about. It would be a shame if we did not find some talent to surround him with – not saying that we don't have that in the program already but building more depth with playmakers at the tight end position and wide receiver. I think we helped our- selves there. You look at the tight end po- sition with [Mike] Gesicki, I don't know if I've heard of a kid that's been invited to the Army All-American game and invited to the McDonald's All-American game in basketball. I don't think I've ever heard that before. What did you guys like about Tor- rence Brown? You were looking at him at Vanderbilt. What does he bring to this class? We're going to play Torrence at defensive end. We've been recruiting him for a long time. He came to camp at our previous in- stitution. You're talking about a guy who's 6-4, 235 pounds who was playing tailback in high school. Played tailback, linebacker, as well as defensive end and rushed off the edge. We're thinking he has a chance to be a 265-pounder. We recruited him from day one as a defensive end. How hectic has it been the last three weeks with recruiting and being on the road? Did you recruit anyone with whom you hadn't built a previous re- lationship? We were not getting into a situation where we come to Penn State and find a guy that we don't know a whole lot about and start recruiting them. That's a recipe for disaster. We weren't going to do that. We wanted to make sure we knew these kids and knew their families. We've been recruiting them for a long time. That's why you see – uncharacteristic of a Penn State recruiting class – these guys come from all over the country. You've used the word length to de- scribe this class, particularly in the secondary. How much of a priority do you place on height or length when you're recruiting defensive backs in particular? I think when you look at how the game is changing and look at the wide receivers that we've recruited in the class with [Chris] Godwin, who is 6-2 and Saeed [Blacknall], who is 6-3. Gesicki, who is basically a high school wideout, is 6-5, 242 pounds right now. We've all been places where you've got a really good defensive back. He's in great position and does everything right but he still can't make the play. So the length is important. If you're going to recruit a guy that's a little bit undersized, he better have tremendous leaping ability and good ball skills. Good ball skills make guys bigger. They can play the ball, so that's important. The other place where length is import- nat is in growth potential. I'm a big fea- tures guy. I like to recruit guys with massive heads, big hands, long arms and big feet because that shows growth potential. Those guys have a chance to grow into big physical guys on the field and still have that ath- leticism we're looking for. Our model at offensive line, typically, we'll recruit the 6-5, 6-6 guys who are STOCKING UP Despite Christian Hackenberg hav- ing three remain- ing years of eligbility, James Franklin said, "being able to get two quarterbacks in this class was important." F E B R U A R Y 5 , 2 0 1 4 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 10 Tim Owen SEE FRANKLIN PAGE 11

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