Blue White Illustrated

O c T O B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . c O m 12 COACHSPEAK | E X c E R P T S F R O m J A m E S F R A N K L I N ' S P O S T G A m E P R E S S E R How do you address the team a'er a game like this? You look emotionally spent, and I imagine they are emo- tionally spent. I'm an emotional guy, so I got emo- tional with them. It starts with 'I love you' and ends with 'I love you', always with us. I'm really proud of how they competed. There are no moral victo- ries at Penn State and there never will be, but I'm proud of how they fought and stood together. With that, we'll get where we want to go. We'll get where the fans want us to go. We'll go where everyone needs us to go. That's the most important thing. There are no moral victories, but I love these kids and sticking together, we'll get where we want to be. I told them that, and I was emotional when I told them that. Can you talk about the last drive by your guys in regulation? What did that show for Christian [Hackenberg] and the receivers? I think the biggest thing is, these guys believe in themselves. They believe in the program. They always believe we're going to have a chance to win the game. That's what I noticed throughout the game. As the game went on, guys started making plays, started gaining confidence. Obviously, going down and scoring the first period of overtime was huge. Then they were able to answer. We're going to watch the film. We have a lot of things we need to correct. We're making progress. It may not show up on the scoreboard, but we're making progress. What explanation were you given on the interception in the first quar- ter and on the field goal, when it ap- peared the play clock expired? All of that equals 10 points, right? I'm a guy; I think you guys are starting to get to know me a little better. I would love to come in here on a weekly basis and tell you exactly what I think and it goes against everything that I am. I tell people the truth, but I'm not able to do that. I'm going to focus on the things that we can correct as a program and our kids. I'm going to fight for our kids and our program. Can you talk about Akeel [Lynch] tonight and the running game and the spark he gave you guys? I was pleased with Akeel. He was de- cisive. He is a big, physical guy. He's able to get downhill. I thought Bill [Bel- ton] did some nice things early on mak- ing some people miss. One of the things I think Akeel does a great job of is that he makes a decision about one cut, hits it, and gets downhill. I think those two guys are a nice complement for us. It was a shame seeing Zach [Zwinak] go down early on. We lost Zach during the game, we lost Donovan [Smith] during the game, we lost [Ryan] Keiser during the game – that's three starters. They are guys that have had significant roles for us who we didn't have for a good portion of the game.

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