Blue White Illustrated

C OA C H S P E A K| EXCERPTS FROM JAMES FRANKLIN'S WEEKLY PRESSER Has cutting back on turnovers been a bigger point of emphasis than usual this season for you, and if yes, how has that affected the play calling on offense? We do a ball-security circuit every single day in practice, and I know that sounds obvious, but I've never been anywhere that does it like that. We do it every single day. Every single week, I talk to our coaches about [preventing it from becoming] monotonous or just a drill we are going through the motions on. Let's make sure we are really work- ing hard at that. So that's one thing, and secondly, it goes back to four weeks ago to what I said to you guys: We are going to call the game in a style that al- lows us to be successful, allows us to win, allows us to manage some of our issues. I said that, I said that four weeks ago, and I think that's really what we are doing. I do see us improving. The problem is, every time we improve, we lose a guy, and then a new guy goes in and you're still trying to build up that consistency. We lost [Angelo Mangiro] last week and Wendy [Laurent] went in, and actually Wendy did really well, so those things all factor into it, but in a lot of ways this is exactly what we talked about. That first week we had some real chal- lenges that made it difficult to win, you know, when you play the way we played. So, yeah, the way we're calling the game is going to manage some of those issues and it also gives us the ability to reduce plays like turnovers that I think have a major factor in the game. So that's what we're trying to do. We've got to continue to build on it, continue to get better. We've got to continue to be more aggressive in spots. I think this game this week, these guys are going to force you to do that. They're going to load the box up. I don't know how they do it, but they have somewhere around 13 guys around the line of scrimmage every single play. They must have gotten an NCAA waiver to be able to do that, but they're going to force you to be aggressive. What we can't do, though, like we talked about the last couple weeks, is we can't abort the run and get away from the running game. We've got to be able to do both. Whether or not you have Saquon Barkley on Saturday, I wanted to ask you at this point in the season are you concerned at all that you might be getting a little too dependent on a true freshman runner, and if you're not, how would you assess his value to your offense? You know, I don't know what else to do. You say we may be getting too de- pendent on a freshman runner [but] all we've got are freshmen runners, so I'm not sure what the other option is unless you have some eligibility. That's where we are. So, yeah, we are dependent. Has Saquon been exciting this year? No doubt about it, he's been fun to watch. I see Nick Scott doing nice things, I see Mark Allen starting to do some nice things, Johnathan Thomas for playing for the first time, but, yeah, are we de- pendent on freshmen in our running game. This is all we have since Akeel has been out. Hopefully we can get him back and that brings more veteran lead- ership to us. You mentioned that you've been able to build up practice depth but not necessarily game depth. With all the injuries, is that something that can be developed before the end of the season? And to what extent do all the moving parts influence strategy in play calling? I think you're exactly right. When I made that comment it was early in the season, and we didn't really have that at that point. We have much better prac- tice depth, but as the season goes on that's what you do. You develop game depth. … We always say by the fiAh game of the year, those [young] guys need to take that step, and that's what's happening. You see that with [Jake] Cooper, you see that with Manny Bowen, you see that with John Reid, you see that with [Brandon] Polk, you see that with Saquon, and all these other guys who are starting to grow into it. So yeah, that's starting to happen right now. It's interesting, I was talking to a good friend of mine who is a head coach as well and we were bouncing some things off each other, and that's one of the things he said. He said people ask me, "Are we going to be ready? Are these guys going to be good players?" Yes. "Are they going to be ready on Satur- day?" We'll see. That's what we're working on every single day, and to see Manny Bowen growing up, it's fun to watch, to see John Reid growing up and Polk and those guys growing up, it's ex- citing to see. It's also cool to see guys like Carl Nas- sib, who is growing up and taking the next step as well. So, yeah, it's good, but we are at that point now where those guys have to start to – they've got to start to build up their confidence and the coaches' confidence that we do have better game depth in some of those spots. You talk about managing the game and taking your shots downfield that maybe Indiana might force you to do. What goes into the feel of managing that through a game, those two sepa- rate notions? It goes back to the things we talked about all year long, understanding our strengths and weaknesses, making sure that some of our challenges don't be- come major issues in the game, and then obviously managing down-and- distance situations so that when you take a shot in a situation and you don't hit the shot, you're not in a third-and- long situation and make it tough to stay on the field and convert on third down. But also, [it's important to] not be so predictable that on second-and-1, everybody in the stadium knows you're going to take a shot on second-and-1, which a lot of people refer to as a "waste" down. It's that fine line be- tween those two things. You've coached Carl Nassib now for two years, but when you first came in and saw Carl and the fact that he was O C T O B E R 7 , 2 0 1 5 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 14

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