Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/349223
F O O T B A L L >> J A M E S F R A N K L I N With his first season in University Park fast approaching, en- ergetic coach James Franklin takes a (brief) pause to chat with BWI's Nate Bauer about prepping a youthful team and build- ing support for Penn State in Beaver Stadium and beyond. How close are you to feeling prepared for camp? I think the first year I was a head coach, that was probably a challenge, but since then we have a model that we use and we tweak it each year a little bit, modify some things, learn from some things, grow. We've got a model that we believe in, and I think that helps. We don't just look at what we did last year; we look at the evolution over the last three years of camps and go from there. Ob- viously, it's a little different because it's Penn State-specific, but the beliefs and the structure are similar. How have the rules changes – two hours of film study per week – influenced your expectations for the true freshmen? Not a whole lot. You look at year one compared to year three, and this is year one now, and I think that time allows you to maybe have a little bit more success in getting guys ready earlier on. Our philos- ophy is that hopefully by game five, the freshmen aren't freshmen anymore, the first-time starters aren't first-time starters anymore, they've evolved and they've grown. So I think that time that you're able to spend in the summer with them is helpful because maybe now by game three they'll be further along, or maybe by game one. Our approach is, we're going to be real aggressive during camp with our installations, and some guys are able to pick it up and some guys aren't. I think the time you spend in the summer now will probably allow you to have a higher percentage of guys who are ready. To what degree are you counting on that? You have only 33 guys with either senior or junior eligibility, leaving 87 players with three or more years. Yeah, and how many of those 33 have played, too? I guess what I would say is, yeah, I'm hopeful and I'm excited with the new rule and I'm hoping that it's going to have an impact, but I'm not depending on it because I just don't live that way. I don't know how it's going to I think we can do some pretty cool things this year' ' Steve Manuel NEWS & NOTES & A Q