Penn State football was back at it Wednesday evening at the Lasch Football Complex, allowing the media inside the gates to catch a few minutes of practice followed by a group interview with head coach James Franklin.
Let’s get right into some of our observations from the practice session, plus news and notes from Franklin’s post-practice interview
1) On getting into practice, we were able to see immediately a few second-team reps. Let’s go straight to the lineup of that second-team offense:
QB - Tommy Stevens
RB - Johnathan Thomas
WR - Jahan Dotson
WR - Daniel George
WR - Justin Shorter
TE - Pat Freiermuth
LT - Alex Gellerstedt
LG - Mike Miranda
C - Zach Simpson
RG - Des Holmes
RT - Chasz Wright
Stevens immediately hit Freiermuth for a touchdown.
Sean Clifford took the next rep with the twos. Same exact group except for Clifford, and it led to a completion to George.
2) The first team looked the same as always:
QB - Trace McSorley
RB - Miles Sanders
LT - Ryan Bates
LG - Steven Gonzalez
C - Michal Menet
RG - Connor McGovern
RT - Will Fries
TE - Nick Bowers
WR - K.J. Hamler
WR - Juwan Johnson
WR - Brandon Polk
On McSorley’s first snap that we saw, he fired a touchdown to Hamler. Surely, this is a little bit of burying the lede, but yes Hamler was out there and yes, Hamler was full-go, mixing it up on run blocking even when he wasn’t involved in a pass play.
- The next two plays were passes and incompletions directed Hamler’s way.
- McSorley connected with Freiermuth for a touchdown.
- McSorley scrambled his way to a touchdown.
- Last but not least, with Slade by his side working with the second team, Clifford handed off to Slade, who then took off for a touchdown.
Again, this is against Penn State’s scout team defense in purely red zone work.
3) Maybe a coincidence, but probably not, asked about McSorley’s comments earlier today that he believed Tuesday’s practice was the best all year, Franklin one-upped his signal-caller by saying that it was, in fact, the best practice during his tenure at Penn State.
And he based it, like McSorley indicated earlier today, on the effort given by the scout team. No longer a pushover unit simply used to operate as virtual tackling dummies, Franklin insisted that the development of the scout team has been extremely important to the overall development of the team this year.
“They have a legitimate ability to replicate what we’re going to face. In the years past, you’d get the speed of the game on Saturday, and you wouldn’t really get it unless we went good on good. So I think that’s probably something that’s not talked about enough, the importance and the impact of the quality of your scout team,” said Franklin. “Ours is getting to a point where the scout players are getting better, they’re having fun, they’re competing, and they’re challenging… When you’re watching it, it looks like real football. It looks like game-like situations with the speed, the physicality of it. And then the other thing is we’re athletic enough where we’re able to play that fast, and we’re able to play that aggressive without people falling all over the ground because that’s another thing. We want to stay off the ground so we don’t get anybody rolled up and things like that, so it just looks different.”
4) Franklin discussed Tuesday afternoon his primary contention that this team has gotten better every week of the season.
Wednesday, he offered a specific example.
Asked about the defense’s tackling through the course of the season, Franklin indicated that improvements had been made in that department.
“I think we have gotten a lot better in our tackling from the beginning of the season until now. There have been times obviously where it’s showed up where we missed tackles against other really good players in space,” said Franklin. “Really what you’re trying to do defensively, is you try to limit the number of times where you’re trying to tackle a really good player in space. That’s where pursuit is so important.
“Obviously we don’t want to miss any tackles, but if you do miss a tackle you want to miss it on the right leverage so the other 10 guys are running to the ball. That’s what we want to try to do. That’s happened a few times, but I think we’ve improved a good degree.
5) Franklin was asked, as was McSorley earlier today, about McSorley’s inclusion or exclusion in the Heisman conversation.
McSorley, saying he wasn’t worried about it, provided his standard answer. But Franklin offered something I thought was at least a little bit different for him.
Asked if McSorley had been written off for that award after the Ohio State game, Franklin said this:
“I would think in a lot of ways it would be the opposite. You wouldn’t write him off after the Ohio State game. He was the Big Ten player of the week, in my opinion. I don’t care what anybody says. Played like crazy,” said Franklin. “Again, those things are not things that we spend a whole lot of time talking about or worrying about. Sometimes the marketing department does things. I get all that. But we’re worried about Michigan State and those things are for the media to discuss and for fans to vote on and all that kind of stuff. We’re focused on Michigan State.”
Let’s get right into some of our observations from the practice session, plus news and notes from Franklin’s post-practice interview
1) On getting into practice, we were able to see immediately a few second-team reps. Let’s go straight to the lineup of that second-team offense:
QB - Tommy Stevens
RB - Johnathan Thomas
WR - Jahan Dotson
WR - Daniel George
WR - Justin Shorter
TE - Pat Freiermuth
LT - Alex Gellerstedt
LG - Mike Miranda
C - Zach Simpson
RG - Des Holmes
RT - Chasz Wright
Stevens immediately hit Freiermuth for a touchdown.
Sean Clifford took the next rep with the twos. Same exact group except for Clifford, and it led to a completion to George.
2) The first team looked the same as always:
QB - Trace McSorley
RB - Miles Sanders
LT - Ryan Bates
LG - Steven Gonzalez
C - Michal Menet
RG - Connor McGovern
RT - Will Fries
TE - Nick Bowers
WR - K.J. Hamler
WR - Juwan Johnson
WR - Brandon Polk
On McSorley’s first snap that we saw, he fired a touchdown to Hamler. Surely, this is a little bit of burying the lede, but yes Hamler was out there and yes, Hamler was full-go, mixing it up on run blocking even when he wasn’t involved in a pass play.
- The next two plays were passes and incompletions directed Hamler’s way.
- McSorley connected with Freiermuth for a touchdown.
- McSorley scrambled his way to a touchdown.
- Last but not least, with Slade by his side working with the second team, Clifford handed off to Slade, who then took off for a touchdown.
Again, this is against Penn State’s scout team defense in purely red zone work.
3) Maybe a coincidence, but probably not, asked about McSorley’s comments earlier today that he believed Tuesday’s practice was the best all year, Franklin one-upped his signal-caller by saying that it was, in fact, the best practice during his tenure at Penn State.
And he based it, like McSorley indicated earlier today, on the effort given by the scout team. No longer a pushover unit simply used to operate as virtual tackling dummies, Franklin insisted that the development of the scout team has been extremely important to the overall development of the team this year.
“They have a legitimate ability to replicate what we’re going to face. In the years past, you’d get the speed of the game on Saturday, and you wouldn’t really get it unless we went good on good. So I think that’s probably something that’s not talked about enough, the importance and the impact of the quality of your scout team,” said Franklin. “Ours is getting to a point where the scout players are getting better, they’re having fun, they’re competing, and they’re challenging… When you’re watching it, it looks like real football. It looks like game-like situations with the speed, the physicality of it. And then the other thing is we’re athletic enough where we’re able to play that fast, and we’re able to play that aggressive without people falling all over the ground because that’s another thing. We want to stay off the ground so we don’t get anybody rolled up and things like that, so it just looks different.”
4) Franklin discussed Tuesday afternoon his primary contention that this team has gotten better every week of the season.
Wednesday, he offered a specific example.
Asked about the defense’s tackling through the course of the season, Franklin indicated that improvements had been made in that department.
“I think we have gotten a lot better in our tackling from the beginning of the season until now. There have been times obviously where it’s showed up where we missed tackles against other really good players in space,” said Franklin. “Really what you’re trying to do defensively, is you try to limit the number of times where you’re trying to tackle a really good player in space. That’s where pursuit is so important.
“Obviously we don’t want to miss any tackles, but if you do miss a tackle you want to miss it on the right leverage so the other 10 guys are running to the ball. That’s what we want to try to do. That’s happened a few times, but I think we’ve improved a good degree.
5) Franklin was asked, as was McSorley earlier today, about McSorley’s inclusion or exclusion in the Heisman conversation.
McSorley, saying he wasn’t worried about it, provided his standard answer. But Franklin offered something I thought was at least a little bit different for him.
Asked if McSorley had been written off for that award after the Ohio State game, Franklin said this:
“I would think in a lot of ways it would be the opposite. You wouldn’t write him off after the Ohio State game. He was the Big Ten player of the week, in my opinion. I don’t care what anybody says. Played like crazy,” said Franklin. “Again, those things are not things that we spend a whole lot of time talking about or worrying about. Sometimes the marketing department does things. I get all that. But we’re worried about Michigan State and those things are for the media to discuss and for fans to vote on and all that kind of stuff. We’re focused on Michigan State.”
