Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/884703
O c T O B E R 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 On the offensive line: We have got to improve there, but again, we're cri- tiquing a Big Ten win on the road where we scored 31 points and basically played shutout football. Do we have to get bet- ter? Yes. Nobody knows that better than our offensive staff and our offensive line and Matt Limegrover, who will do a great job. I feel like we're at the right point right now to go into the bye week and say, these are the things that we need to improve on from an individual perspective, from a fundamental per- spective, from a technique perspective. Obviously, everybody is back, so we had the guys last year to win at a high level and we need to build on that for this year. We need to get that playing at a little bit higher level. There's no doubt about it. On Shaka Toney: I think Sean [Spencer] has done a really nice job with his development. I think we're using him smart. We don't have him out there very o?en on first and second down. He's growing into that. We're using him, obviously, in passing situations, third-down medium to long and allow- ing him to play and do what he does best. As the season goes on, he'll grow more into a first- and second-down player. It's a combination of experience, it's a combination of game reps, it's a combination of training table and get- ting a few more pounds on him. It's all those things. He's a disruptive guy. I think I told you guys maybe in the spring or the off-season, you're going to look at him and you're going to say, this guy is not a D-end in the Big Ten. We probably all need to change our picture of what a Big Ten defensive end is, be- cause he's extremely powerful. He's ex- tremely explosive and he just has a knack for getting on the edge of people. I think he's got a bright future long- term. But we need that. We need to be able to get pressure on the quarterback more consistently, and he's a guy who brings that. On the offense's performance: We've got obviously the most explosive player in college football. We have an offense that doesn't panic. We've got coaches who don't panic. It's not like we start getting frustrated when things aren't working as well as we'd like. We stick with the game plan. I think the other thing that helps is our defense helps us do that. Our defense helps us to stay in position because how well we're playing on that side of the ball. The fact we're [doing well] on special teams helps a little bit.