Blue White Illustrated

C OA C H S P E A K| EXCERPTS FROM JAMES FRANKLIN'S WEEKLY PRESSER How much did you think the team missed Brandon Bell out there against Illinois? Can you assess his impact on the defense this year? Well, first of all, I think Jason [Cabinda], for a true freshman, has played well all year long, and I thought he played well on Saturday. But not having Brandon Bell, I think changes things. I don't think there is any doubt. He's a starter for a reason for us. I think that did have an impact on us. You could say the same thing about [Ryan] Keiser, although I think Marcus [Allen] is playing well. When you lose starters, it has an im- pact. So I thought Jason stepped up and did a great job. I think he learned from it. I feel like we can win with him, but I don't think there is any doubt losing Brandon Bell has an impact on us. We're in a situation probably to go a little bit further with that, as you guys know. Whenever we lose anybody, it's significant, and maybe more significant than at some other places. Could you assess the last month for Christian Hackenberg, how he's played and how he's handled the way he's played? Yeah, I think obviously Christian has got really high standards and expecta- tions for himself and who he wants to be and how he wants to play. I think there is frustration there with a lot of different things. But I think, again, con- sidering he's a true sophomore and he's 19 years old, I think he's handled it pretty well. He was one of the guys in my office Saturday night as one of the captains talking about these things. I had a bunch of individual meetings with guys on Sunday about things that I think we could do better or be doing dif- ferently. So I think Hack's been good. Considering everything that's happened and how it's all played out, I think he's been good. I think he's getting better every single day. There are some things that we need to continue to work on. Footwork, fundamentals, technique, things like that – those are going to be helpful. But the other thing is continu- ing to develop the guys around him, which I've talked about before. It's all of those things. It's not one factor. I think more than anything, Hack's re- ally, really competitive. He's really pas- sionate about what he does and how he does it and has really high standards and expectations. Nobody is harder on Hack than Hack. That's something that I know we have to be aware of as a staff. I wanted to ask you about Chris- tian's durability this year. For all the hits he's taken, he's bounced back. Also, it looked like he took a big shot and was bouncing around for a while [at Illinois]. Is he OK? I think all the work with Christian, and the rest of the players and [Dwight] Galt and his staff, as well as Tim Bream and their staff, has been really helpful for us this year and even years going forward making sure we're as durable as we pos- sibly can be. I think [it reflects] a com- mitment to nutrition, commitment to sleep, commitment to getting in and get- ting treatment, not just when you have issues, but just taking care of your body, getting in the cold tubs and hot tubs. I think our guys have committed to that. This week is going to be helpful. We put a priority on sleep, letting those guys sleep in. They don't have class. We took them to the movies last night. We're doing some different things like that from a morale standpoint and also just from a physiological standpoint. So those things have been good. But I think he's held up extremely well, especially under the circum- stances. But he's feeling it. Sundays are tough getting in there, but he usually bounces back really well. Your offense has scored 20 points one time in the past seven games. I know there are a lot of different rea- sons for that. But my question is specifically about the play-calling, which has probably come under as much criticism as any other part of the team. I'm just wondering, do you believe that criticism of John Dono- van is fair or not, and how would you assess the play-calling? I keep getting this question all year long, and I keep answering it the same way, so it's really not going to change. At the end of the season we'll evaluate everything like we always do. We've been talking since last summer, and really the end of this spring that we were going to have challenges up front. The game of football is played on the defensive line, and it just happens to be that our defense is really good, and we N O V E M 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 13 Tim Owen SEE FRANKLIN PAGE 14 STILL STANDING Penn State has man- aged to keep Hacken- berg healthy even though he's been hit more than any QB in the Big Ten. Said Franklin, "He's held up extremely well, espe- cially under the cir- cumstances. But he's feeling it."

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