Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/847744
in some ways vacation triggers the start of it. You'd love to say after vacation it starts, but you just kind of start during vacation. Your mind changes because you know it's right around the corner now. But we need every day possible. The demands of recruiting, the demands of our own players, the demands of the camps, just all the different things going on make it difficult. The demands of the X's and O's and the schemes that you've got to review and go through, spring ball cut-ups and all those types of things. The demands of the media. The de- mands of going to Harrisburg. That trip to Harrisburg [to visit the state Capitol in June] was awesome, but it's saying you're going to take a day. It kills a day. So that's the challenging part. BWI Do the games mean more to you, or are you so focused on the process that you embrace every step of it? FRANKLIN I wouldn't say I like one thing better than the other. It's probably one of the things I like about the job. If you have an office job, your routine is the same year-round, where for us you have times of the year where you're in the office doing work, you have times of the year where you're out in the com- munity with the Caravan, with recruit- ing. You have times of the year where you're on the football field practicing. You have times of the year where you're doing camps. You have all these differ- ent in-season, out-of-season [responsi- bilities], times where you're watching film and discussing schemes and foot- ball. So I like the change of pace. I like that it's not the same thing every day, all day. The variety of the job I like. So I kind of like it all. I mean, the games obviously are a thrill and they're a rush of adrenaline and all that kind of stuff, but I wouldn't neces- sarily say I like the games more than I like practice. I love practice. It's all of it. I would probably say it's kind of on a scale. There are aspects of the job that I don't completely love, but that's every- body's job. I talk to our guys about this all the time: People who are successful in school and people who are successful in their careers and jobs, they under- stand that. No one is doing a job that they love 100 percent. It's no different than in school. There are classes that you're going to be very interested in, and there are going to be classes that you're not very interested in, but you still have to do a good job in those. That's life. BWI I asked Trace and Saquon the worst part of being a Penn State football player... FRANKLIN Morning workouts. BWI No. Paraphrasing, they said being famous. A couple of years ago, no one knew who they were, and now strangers are taking pictures of them without ask- ing. FRANKLIN I can see that. The challeng- ing part that I don't think people realize is the cumulative effect. You're never off. If I want to take my daughters on a Sunday morning to go get donuts, I can't just do that, because whenever I leave my house, I'm the head football coach at Penn State. So it's just constant. You have to be on. And then when I go have lunch with my daughters at their ele- mentary school, I don't want to be the head football coach at Penn State, I just want to be their dad. When I take my wife out to dinner, I would just like to be my wife's husband. But it's not like you can do that. That's where, if you do have the opportunity to get away, that's help- ful. BWI At times, Penn State football fans have had an assumption that the team would win a certain number of games. People would look at the schedule and presume wins or losses simply based on tradition. The past four years, that wasn't necessarily the case. Do you feel like this season is a reversion to that in terms of fan expectations? FRANKLIN Yeah, they probably are. I wish they wouldn't. When you play the game of football and you get 12 sched- uled games a year, each one of those is like gold. You look at the programs around the country that sell out every single game, and I think they approach it like that. Look, we've only got 12 of these opportunities and seven at home, so we're going to approach each one of these like gold. Because when the season is over, we don't get it back for a long time. I think Nebraska is a great example of that. There are certain programs around the country that sell out. They sell out when things are going well, they sell out when things are tough, they sell out against good opponents, they sell out against opponents that people wouldn't view as sexy. I would love for us to get this place like that, where we look at it as not only who we're playing but, hey, this is an opportunity to get in the stadium with 107,000 fans and be a part of some- thing bigger than just yourself. It's an opportunity to tailgate with my friends. It's an opportunity to make a statement about the university and make a state- ment about the football program and the type of support we get. And let's see if we can go on a run like some of these programs that have gone six, seven years or even longer with sellouts. I know I'm talking about sellouts, but I guess what I'm saying is, I think when people start taking the wins and the season for granted, that's what happens. It's an appreciation. I want our players to appreciate the blessings that we have here at Penn State and the opportunity that they have here in life. If you go through life from a point of apprecia- tion, you're going to be so much more happy and you're going to be so much more fulfilled than someone who is al- ways looking at the woulda, coulda, shoulda and the shortcomings. BWI I'd like to go through some of the notable position groups on the team, starting with the offensive line. How do you evaluate that group from where it was to where it is now? FRANKLIN I would say the O-line is an area of excitement for a combination of reasons. I think Matt Limegrover is a re- ally good coach and has done a really great job with those guys. I think what's probably underappreciated by people is not just the scheme and not just the size, but the development of culture, not only of the team as a whole, but by position. I think Matt has done a good job of that. Obviously, he's got a lot of ingredients to