Good evening, all:
I just got back to my place from Penn State's partially opened practice session on this beautiful night in State College. Head coach James Franklin welcomed the media for the final 10-15 minutes of practice, then gave a short post-practice interview and was followed by the same for senior offensive lineman Andrew Nelson.
Let's get right into some of the news and notes then.
1) No Torrence Brown. Yes Amani Oruwariye. Yes Cam Brown. Yes Brendan Mahon.
Again, no idea how those will shake out when Saturday comes around, but, at minimum, a confirmation of the things that Franklin has already discussed as being expected for this weekend.
2) Moving on.
Blaring music, blaring crowd noise, and blaring sound in general was pretty much the theme of tonight's post-practice press conference, because it was also the theme of the small portion of practice we were able to watch. Iowa fight songs were the primary source of that noise.
I had a decibel meter on my phone that I pulled out, and this is what I saw:
It was loud.
Asked to talk about it afterward, Franklin said it can go as loud as 105 on the meter.
This is what he had to say about the tactic and how the team has responded to it, acknowledging that no one likes it because it stays with you afterward, but it's one of those things that you just have to do because you know it's good for you.
"Today we did it the entire day and then we’ll do it tomorrow the entire day. I think it’s louder. As you can see we’re working in the end zone where the speakers are. It’s louder than what it is in Beaver Stadium," he said. "So just trying to get our guys as prepared as possible, playing the same type of music, all those types of things, crowd noise - whatever it may be. So I thought we handled it pretty well but we’ve also done it since the beginning of camp. We didn’t wait. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of camp. I learned my lesson as an offensive coordinator years ago when I waited until the week of to work it and that didn’t go over well."
3) A few play-by-play nuggets to pass along from the small portion of practice we were able to see.
It looked like the offensive ones against the defensive twos, with Penn State's offense starting deep in their own territory trying to move down the field quickly. A minute, 48 seconds were on the clock.
McSorley had to throw away first down, then followed with a quick completion to DaeSean Hamilton. His next pass was completed to DeAndre Thompkins. Miles Sanders broke off a decent run to eclipse midfield. McSorley went back to Thompkins on first down. His next went to Juwan Johnson incomplete. Next was another completion to Hamilton. Short pass was snuffed out in the backfield. Hamilton thought he was interfered with downfield on the next pass, but it was an incompletion. And, on fourth down, with 27 seconds left to play, McSorley slipped through a pretty intense blitz and unloaded one deep down the field into the end zone to Gesicki. Bracketed by Tariq Castro-Fields and safety help, the pass was batted down and that was the end of practice.
4) Franklin was asked about the quality of this week's practices, and in what has become a pretty familiar refrain, he echoed Trace McSorley's assertion today that Tuesday's practice was good and was due to film study.
"I think we’re an older team. I think the other thing is now for two years the players are getting together on their own on Mondays, our day off, and watching film, and talking ball, and watching tape and probably laughing and telling stories or whatever but they’re taking some initiative to get a head start. So now when we install things, when we’re talking about what they’re doing defensively, they already have a little bit of a feel for it because they’ve watched it together and discussed some things. I think that helps," said Franklin. "I think it’s probably a combination of those two things more than anything it’s more of a mature team and the players are taking some more initiative on their own on the day off. I think probably you’re getting to week two, week three, week four or week five of the season and they’re kind of starting to get a feel for the routine and I think that helps too."
Bonus)
- Odds and ends stuff that you guys can get a better feel for from his answers included him talking about being out and about in the community more. Apparently there have been some more sightings of him than normal, but he insists that it's about the same since he started in the job. For what it's worth, I live downtown and have always seen him somewhat regularly.
He did have a nice little one-liner at the end, noting, "I’ve done that since year one. Just now people are a little happier to see me."
- This is something that I think we've discussed pretty much at length, but Franklin was again asked how Penn State's backup running backs have handled their roles behind Saquon Barkley.
Without going into too much detail, because he said they're all basically starters that would start anyone else, I did think it was interesting that his comment about Barkley has gotten somewhat larger.
"Those guys are in a challenging, tough situation because they’re good enough to start for us an win for us, but we have one of the better football players on the planet, so for them it’s a real positive that they’re able to watch from someone and learn from someone."
Indeed.
*****
OK guys, that's going to do it from me for now. Photos coming later tonight from practice, and as always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them here and we'll bounce them back and forth.
Thanks!
I just got back to my place from Penn State's partially opened practice session on this beautiful night in State College. Head coach James Franklin welcomed the media for the final 10-15 minutes of practice, then gave a short post-practice interview and was followed by the same for senior offensive lineman Andrew Nelson.
Let's get right into some of the news and notes then.
1) No Torrence Brown. Yes Amani Oruwariye. Yes Cam Brown. Yes Brendan Mahon.
Again, no idea how those will shake out when Saturday comes around, but, at minimum, a confirmation of the things that Franklin has already discussed as being expected for this weekend.
2) Moving on.
Blaring music, blaring crowd noise, and blaring sound in general was pretty much the theme of tonight's post-practice press conference, because it was also the theme of the small portion of practice we were able to watch. Iowa fight songs were the primary source of that noise.
I had a decibel meter on my phone that I pulled out, and this is what I saw:
It was loud.
Asked to talk about it afterward, Franklin said it can go as loud as 105 on the meter.
This is what he had to say about the tactic and how the team has responded to it, acknowledging that no one likes it because it stays with you afterward, but it's one of those things that you just have to do because you know it's good for you.
"Today we did it the entire day and then we’ll do it tomorrow the entire day. I think it’s louder. As you can see we’re working in the end zone where the speakers are. It’s louder than what it is in Beaver Stadium," he said. "So just trying to get our guys as prepared as possible, playing the same type of music, all those types of things, crowd noise - whatever it may be. So I thought we handled it pretty well but we’ve also done it since the beginning of camp. We didn’t wait. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of camp. I learned my lesson as an offensive coordinator years ago when I waited until the week of to work it and that didn’t go over well."
3) A few play-by-play nuggets to pass along from the small portion of practice we were able to see.
It looked like the offensive ones against the defensive twos, with Penn State's offense starting deep in their own territory trying to move down the field quickly. A minute, 48 seconds were on the clock.
McSorley had to throw away first down, then followed with a quick completion to DaeSean Hamilton. His next pass was completed to DeAndre Thompkins. Miles Sanders broke off a decent run to eclipse midfield. McSorley went back to Thompkins on first down. His next went to Juwan Johnson incomplete. Next was another completion to Hamilton. Short pass was snuffed out in the backfield. Hamilton thought he was interfered with downfield on the next pass, but it was an incompletion. And, on fourth down, with 27 seconds left to play, McSorley slipped through a pretty intense blitz and unloaded one deep down the field into the end zone to Gesicki. Bracketed by Tariq Castro-Fields and safety help, the pass was batted down and that was the end of practice.
4) Franklin was asked about the quality of this week's practices, and in what has become a pretty familiar refrain, he echoed Trace McSorley's assertion today that Tuesday's practice was good and was due to film study.
"I think we’re an older team. I think the other thing is now for two years the players are getting together on their own on Mondays, our day off, and watching film, and talking ball, and watching tape and probably laughing and telling stories or whatever but they’re taking some initiative to get a head start. So now when we install things, when we’re talking about what they’re doing defensively, they already have a little bit of a feel for it because they’ve watched it together and discussed some things. I think that helps," said Franklin. "I think it’s probably a combination of those two things more than anything it’s more of a mature team and the players are taking some more initiative on their own on the day off. I think probably you’re getting to week two, week three, week four or week five of the season and they’re kind of starting to get a feel for the routine and I think that helps too."
Bonus)
- Odds and ends stuff that you guys can get a better feel for from his answers included him talking about being out and about in the community more. Apparently there have been some more sightings of him than normal, but he insists that it's about the same since he started in the job. For what it's worth, I live downtown and have always seen him somewhat regularly.
He did have a nice little one-liner at the end, noting, "I’ve done that since year one. Just now people are a little happier to see me."
- This is something that I think we've discussed pretty much at length, but Franklin was again asked how Penn State's backup running backs have handled their roles behind Saquon Barkley.
Without going into too much detail, because he said they're all basically starters that would start anyone else, I did think it was interesting that his comment about Barkley has gotten somewhat larger.
"Those guys are in a challenging, tough situation because they’re good enough to start for us an win for us, but we have one of the better football players on the planet, so for them it’s a real positive that they’re able to watch from someone and learn from someone."
Indeed.
*****
OK guys, that's going to do it from me for now. Photos coming later tonight from practice, and as always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them here and we'll bounce them back and forth.
Thanks!
