Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/394762
C OA C H S P E A K|EXCERPTS FROM JAMES FRANKLIN'S WEEKLY PRESSER You were recruiting Thursday and Friday during the bye week, but what did you do Saturday? Did that include watching the Michigan-Rutgers game? Saturday I was supposed to go and re- cruit in Philadelphia and a schedule got changed, a game got moved from Satur- day to Friday. So I was disappointed be- cause I was really looking forward to going to that game and recruiting and being in the area. But with that plan changing at the last minute, I ended up getting a chance to go home, see my wife and kids and spend an aDernoon with them. My man cave was finished, so I sat down in the basement and watched a bunch of football games, mainly the Michigan game and flicked back and forth. My daughters came down and snuggled on the couch. Walked upstairs about six times and got something to drink and something to eat and I just posted up in the basement, which was awesome. Not that that's newsworthy or anything, but I thought I would share it with you. What do you think is the key to sparking your run game right now? Are there one or two things that stick out to you maybe on film that could give you a jump start there? It's funny, because we get these ques- tions a lot. I just did two interviews be- fore coming in here and I wish there was a magic wand that you just kind of wave over people's heads or situation's heads. But football doesn't work like that and life doesn't work like that. If you want to get better at something, you just have to keep working and you just have to keep practicing. Our kids are committed to doing that and our coaches are committed to doing that. It's no different than it's been for the last 150 years. It's footwork. It's funda- mentals, and there's an aspect of it that's experience. It's guys getting up there and getting in their stance and making some calls. If they are seeing a front or they are seeing a blitz, and they have seen it before, they have recognized it, and they have had success with it before. That's where the experience at the O-Line and the experience at the quarterback position are so important. I would also say prob- ably the same thing at middle line- backer. It's being able to recognize things quickly and then being able to go out and block it and be successful. I think what happens in the game, like a lot of sports, is when they are thinking too much, then they don't play as fast, they don't play as athletic and they don't play as aggressive. That's where the ex- perience really counts. So, we are just going to stay positive and we're going to keep grinding through it. I think one of the things that we talked about over the bye week is we can't abandon the run game. That's my- self and that's the rest of the coaches. You get frustrated because you're not getting as much positive yardage as you want and you're trying to stay out of third-and-long. But we've got to commit to the run- ning game and we've got to be patient. There may be what people would call an ugly three-yard run. Those are beauti- ful. Those are beautiful and you've just got to keep grinding them out and you've got to stay patient. That will help our pass game. That will help protec- tion. That will help Christian [Hacken- berg] and that will help a lot of things. The way our defense is playing, they allow us to do that. I think that's going to be important for us. Christian has six interceptions and a fumble in five games and he's trying awfully hard to make a play for his offense. But would you like to see him maybe tone it down a little when it comes to trying to make the heroic play? I think it's a fine line. The way our of- fense has been the first couple weeks, there has been a lot on his shoulders. It's always easy to find fault when things don't go well, but a lot of those plays [in which] he has been aggressive, they have gone well. I always get a kick out of watching games on TV and the announcers aDer the fact question why somebody did something or why something was called. You know, that's easy. But when you're out there and you're competing and you're being chased by 300- pounders, Christian is growing just like we're all growing, and I've been pleased with it. So, I think obviously at the quarter- back position and a lot of positions, we O C T O B E R 8 , 2 0 1 4 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 13 Tim Owen SEE FRANKLIN PAGE 14 RECRUITING PITCH With committed prospects taking other official visits, Franklin said it has little to do with on-field performance. "To be honest," he said, "I don't think the season has anything to do with it."