Blue White Illustrated

C O A C H S P E A K • R E C E N T C O M M E N T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ON THIS WEEK'S PRACTICESI think we have one session plus the spring game. Typically, the last practice is more of a jog-through. We go through and teach all the young guys how we go to the sta- dium, how we stretch at the stadium, how we are in the locker room. So it's basically a dress rehearsal as well as a walk-through, kind of a combination of our normal Friday in-season walk- through, plus a total game rehearsal so that these guys understand what to ex- pect next season. There's not a whole lot to do on Friday. We'll watch [Mon- day's] tape with them and get those things cleaned up over the next couple days. We'll have fairly vanilla game plans on both offense and defense. We'll go over things. I think you guys know, it's a great opportunity. Brent [Pry] was the defensive coordinator on the White team for a couple of years, and Ricky [Rahne] was the offensive coordinator on the White team for a couple of years. It's also an opportunity to allow those other guys to call the game, to manage the game and get some experience. It's very valuable for me to see how the de- fensive coordinator running the [sec- ond-team] defense on the White team, how he does against our [first-team] of- fense. … There's value in that in terms of evaluating the staff. ON NEW ASSISTANTS DAVID CORLEY AND JA'JUAN SEIDER They've been great. … I interviewed David seven years ago when I hired Josh Gattis [at Vanderbilt], so I've known David for a long time and have been tracking him and building that relationship. Ja'Juan is a guy who I've really just gotten to know here recently. Early on, there's not a whole lot in terms of guys bring- ing their own ideas and their perspec- tives. Don't get me wrong, we have conversations and they have input like everybody else. But right now they're trying to learn our systems. Once they have our systems down pat – they're pretty far along with that – then that's where they bring the most value where they can bring their perspectives from Army or UConn or West Virginia or Florida. That's happening now. It be- comes the most valuable once they know our systems and culture. Then they can add to it. They've been great so far. They've been great fits culturally, and their families are great as well, but we'll gain the most value aBer spring ball, aBer spring recruiting, when we start to go through these things in more detail. ON THE EARLY ENROLLEESI think [the Blue-White Game] means a lot. It means a lot for us to evaluate the guys to see if they are who we think they are, how close they are to being able to con- tribute. For these guys to be able to get up there and play in that stadium, which a lot of them had seen a lot of games as fans or as recruits, and for their families, it's really pretty cool. I've seen that [Micah Parsons'] dad has rented a bus and they've got a crew coming up from Harrisburg. I know [Nick] Tarburton will have a bunch of people here and so on so forth. I know it's exciting for those families, I know it's exciting for those kids, but for us it's another opportunity to evaluate them to see how close they are and [whether] they legitimately have a chance to con- tribute for us in the fall. ON NICK TARBURTON'S MOVE TO DE- FENSIVE ENDThat's how we recruited him. The day we offered him, we told him, his mom and dad that we were of- fering him as a big athlete, that we would give him a chance at linebacker but he could end up being a defensive lineman for us as well. That's where it started, and then it progressed when he showed up and stepped on the scale. He was 263 pounds when he showed up here, so it wasn't really me telling him that; that was genetics. Then he went on this Nutrisystem diet or something, dropped a bunch of weight to give him- self a chance to stay at linebacker and he really did some nice things and I think he could play linebacker for us, but I think his greatest potential here at Penn State and down he road is at de- fensive end. He's already done some nice things for us there, but it was re- ally from the beginning that [the posi- tion change] was a possibility and his body would tell us who he was going to be. ON THE TEAM'S PRACTICE MENTALITY I thought today was good. I want us to play really competitively and I want us to play with a lot of emotion. The hard part is, how do you take that right to the edge without crossing the line as a competitor? I think we've done a pretty good job the past couple of years of bal- ancing that, that we are going to com- pete so hard at practice and were going to play and practice with emotion but not ever cross the line. I thought today we got a lot of really good work in, got a lot of situations covered, but I thought there were a few times where we be- came undisciplined. At the end of the practice, we did a two-minute situa- tion. The defense picks the ball off and the game is over, so get down. We're re- turning it, cutting back across the field, making 50 guys miss, exposing the football and then throwing the football up into the stands. … There were just lapses of discipline today that I wasn't really happy with, but overall I thought it was a very, very good practice. We just have to mature at a few spots so that doesn't happen. ON THE COMPETITION AT MIDDLE LINEBACKERWe've got guys who are playing Mike, we've got guys who are playing Will. It's too many to list right now, because even the guys we have listed at Mike linebacker, it's not like it's just those guys. It's all those guys we have at the inside linebacker position who could legitimately compete. The field 'backer is a completely different animal, but those two inside 'backers it could really be any of those guys in the three-deep really at this point. What we've got are some veteran guys who have really won some things. Then we've got some young guys who are re- ally talented but lack experience and an understanding of what it takes at this level. Those are redshirt freshmen as A P R I L 1 8 , 2 0 1 8 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 14

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