Blue White Illustrated

S E P T E M B E R 2 4 , 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 On Iowa's strategy: The first thing you have to do is give the University of Iowa credit. They had a great plan tonight. They're obviously coached ex- tremely well. This is a tough venue to play in [and] it was electric in here tonight. So the first thing you've got to do is give Iowa all the credit in the world. I thought they had a really good plan on defense. They weren't going to give up a big play and they played really so? and said we were going to have to take all the underneath routes. [They wanted to see] if we were patient enough to do that all the way down the field. On Penn State's defensive perform- ance: I thought our defense played un- believably well and probably hasn't gotten enough credit this year for as well as they're playing. In the first half, not only did they hold them statistically down to low numbers, but they just kept giving our offense the ball with great field position. We weren't able to execute on offense and finish drives and get a lot of yards, and we need to get better in between the tackles so we can punch the ball in the end zone. Again, they were playing a so? coverage and made us earn it all the way down the field. I told the guys in the locker room, "If you look at any really good season, there's always one game where the team has to gut it out and find a way to win, and we were able to do that tonight." On McSorley and Barkley: Trace McSorely... is one of the most mentally and physically tough players I've been around, a clutch player. Then Saquon Barkley, I cannot imagine that there's a better player in all of college football. I've been doing this for 23 years and this guy is special. I don't know what his stats were, but every time he touched the ball, I don't care if it was a 20-yard run or an 8-yard run, it was something special. The guy is a great leader on the sideline, couldn't be more positive. He's tremen- dous. We found a way to get a win tonight. Trace just told me he punted the ball at the end of the game, and that's not who we are and that's not who he is. He got caught up in the moment. On the team's injuries: We didn't have Torrence Brown tonight, a tremen- dous loss for us, a tremendous young man. And then obviously, at right tackle, we played a redshirt freshman, who was starting his first game in Will Fries. We didn't have Chasz Wright and Andrew Nelson for most of the game. Will Fries went in and battled in his first start on the edge in a tough environment.

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