Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/874910
S E P T E M B E R 1 7 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . c O M 7 C O A C H S P E A K • 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 A er three games, what questions have been answered and what ques- tions do you still have? I think consistently being able to stop the run, create a little bit more three- and-outs. The turnovers were huge today. Whenever you get five turnovers on defense and you don't turn the ball over on offense, that's a recipe for suc- cess. I'd like us to be a little bit more physical, stopping the run game. But again, it's hard to be critical of a shutout. I think overall, we played well. People are getting the ball out of their hands pretty quickly against us, kind of throwing the ball into the flat or the seams real quick. You'd love to see a lit- tle bit more sacks again, but again that's the style of offense that we're seeing. So that would be the one thing I would say on defense. On offense, I think we've got to con- sistently be able to run the ball a little bit better. We've got to sustain our blocks longer. Special teams we have to continue to refine what we're already doing. You were able to get a lot of guys on the field. Can you describe how much it helps a Tariq Castro-Fields or Tommy Stevens to get actual game experience. I think it helps our veteran players. Getting Jason Cabinda, Marcus Allen, Trace [McSorley], Saquon [Barkley] and [Mike] Gesicki off the field… is going to help us next week dramatically. That's going to help us later in the season. But yeah, I don't think there is any doubt when you're able to get guys a bunch of reps in the third quarter, not just the fourth quarter, is really valu- able. I talk about it not only from a player-development standpoint but also to have a healthy locker room. The more guys that you have involved and you're able to watch tape with on Sun- day and grade their tape and grade their performance is valuable, it's really valuable. You're going to have a few critics a er deciding to call a timeout right before the field goal. Could you walk us through the decision, and how im- portant was it to secure that shutout? Really, that had nothing to do with it. We had our fourth team on the field, and we don't have a fourth-team field goal block or really even know how to get lined up with the mix-and-match guys we had in there, so we called a timeout to get the second-team field goal block in there, and that's just how it played out to be honest with you.