Blue White Illustrated

It's been a busy week at Penn State. As you've certainly read by now, the NCAA is restoring Penn State's bowl eligibility and scholarships. And the announce- ment Monday came in the face of a primetime matchup with Rutgers Sat- urday. There's a lot going on, and every- thing is evolving, so let's go inside Blue White Illustrated editor Nate Bauer's notebook for the latest. • Franklin said aCer the win against Akron last weekend that he wanted to get more players involved during the course of the game. Tuesday aCernoon, he expanded on the idea, relating the importance of having developed depth and, more specifically, the need for true freshmen to see additional reps and gain more experience at the college level. "I think it's really the young guys we're talking about," he said, citing Grant Haley, Marcus Allen, Saeed Blacknall, Chris Godwin, and Mike Gesicki as those who have already played, but need to see more action. Further, Franklin said, another true freshman also could see action on Saturday, as he surpassed Da'Quan Davis on the depth chart this week. "The other guy that probably you're going to see [who is] going to play in this game that hasn't played yet is Christian Campbell on special teams and hopefully his role on defense will develop as well." Haley and Allen have both seen action on special teams, and Godwin and Gesicki have both recorded receptions, while Blacknall has yet to get his first. • Franklin was asked about his ap- proach to this weekend's game follow- ing the news of the sanctions in a variety of ways, but Franklin was con- sistent, saying the same that has held true to this point in the season would continue to hold true now. That said, one point brought up by a reporter was given some credence. Expected to face a rowdy crowd at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscat- away, N.J., on Saturday night, Franklin detailed how his Nittany Lions have been preparing for a hostile atmos- phere, not just recently, but throughout the preseason. "The one thing that we may do is when we're playing on the road, the noise will be a different factor in the game," Franklin said. "So we're going to have to have more noise in practice to get our guys prepared for that." Noting a prior mistake in his career when his team hadn't developed a stomach for noisy, hostile environments until the week leading up to its first road test, Franklin said that the preparations began in earnest with hand signals and other adjustments on the very first day of preseason practice. "We started with our silent counts and implementing noise into practice from the very first day of camp," he said. "Will it be emphasized a little bit more this week in practice? Yeah. There's no doubt." •Though the immediate impact of Monday's sanction reduction will be felt most if and when the Nittany Lions become bowl eligible, the long- term effect of the scholarship return could be more prominent. Though the sanction reductions will have an immediate impact on this year's class, now that they'll be able to sign 25 players, the details regarding the pro- gram's ability to reach 85 scholarship players for the 2015 season remain un- clear. "It'll have an impact on this class, there's no doubt about that," Franklin said. "I don't know if it will be as big of an impact as some people may think, but we'll get a few more scholarships. "The other thing that's being re- ported, that we're going to be able to get to 85. I'm still working through that to see how we're going to be able to do that. That's one of the cou- ple of things that we're working through right now to make sure we completely understand, because it's never as clean as everybody thinks it is or as black and white as it's reported. There's a lot more specifics and details that go into it, so we're trying to work through that right now. It will have an impact on this class. If it gives us the ability to get to 85 [next year], I'm not sure yet." • Now in Houston coaching the NFL's Texans, former Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien received a shout out from Franklin. "I actually texted Billy [Monday] night, thanking him for all that he's done the last couple of years because I think he's had a huge role in what's happened here," Franklin said. S E P T E M B E R 1 0 , 2 0 1 4 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 11 PSU turns to youth vs. Rutgers; Franklin reaches out to O'Brien NATE'S NOTEBOOK CAMPBELL'S CORNER Freshman Christian Campbell jumped junior Da'Quan Davis this week on Penn State's official depth chart at cornerback, and James Franklin said he'll likely see his first action of the season vs. Rutgers. Tim Owen

• Cover