James Franklin made his first appearance on the Penn State Coaches Show tonight, live from Primanti Brothers – or what I like to call, The old G-Man.
Here are some of the highlights...
Non-travel scrimmages each Thursday night…
"After we broke (practice tonight) we had a young guy scrimmage. Every Thursday night I’m going to come here and we’re going to keep the 3s and 4s on the depth chart there for 15 more minutes to do scrimmage. I just like where we’re at as an organization. The players kind of understand the culture and how we work and how we train and how we prepare. The staff has a really good understanding of how we want to do things. The administration, everybody. We just have a well-oiled machine right now. We gained a lot of experience last year and confidence. But also everybody understands this is a new team. We’ve got to be willing to take care of all the details and approach it as if last year didn’t exist."
Developing talent vs. maintaining…
“It’s harder to maintain. Same thing with not just the player but the program. I think you work extremely hard to get to the level that we got to last year, but we’re not going to sneak up on anybody anymore. We’ve kind of established a culture. It’s much more challenging and it’s much more difficult to sustain and continue inching in the direction we want to go. I think you go from good to great. Then you get to great and you want to get to elite, which is where we’re really trying to get. Then be able to sustain it. … Last year was a nice step but we still have a lot of work to do. We want to be part of these types of conversations conference-wise and nationally consistently, year after year. We still have a lot of work to do to get there."
Preparing for week one's game without the benefit of a preseason scrimmage…
“Every other sport as well as (football) at every other level, you get to work the kinks out through scrimmages with other teams and things like that because you never know what you’re going get when you’re dealing with 18- to 22-year old males, the most unpredictable group of people on the planet. You go into that stadium in front of 107,000 fans and all the people watching at home on TV, some guys don’t handle that well. Other guys, they step up in that environment. That’s the hard thing to predict. You’d love to be able to work the kinks out with some type of scrimmage or preseason, but we don’t have the fortune of that. This year we went into the stadium a little bit more than we had in the past, to try to get guys comfortable in that environment. But I do think we have a more experienced team and that’s going to help as well.”
Special teams improvement…
“The thing I’m probably most proud of last year, and I don’t think it has been talked about enough, is the step we took on special teams. I think it’s one of those things that maybe isn’t sexy to talk about it, but the impact that it had on our season, the impact it had on our games, was dramatic. I see us getting better there. We’re an organization that doesn’t give our special teams lip service. Special teams is just as important as offense and defense and we treat it as such.
…
“We meet on special teams every single day. We have a team meeting, then we go special teams meeting and then we break into offense and defense and then position groups as well. We invest in it every area. We invest in it in scholarships. We invest in it with meeting time, and we invest in it with practice. I think when you do that, when you invest in anything in life, you have an opportunity to get a return on it. That’s what we want."
Evaluating the true freshman class...
"Obviously it was a very well-thought-of class. I always say that if your class can be as good as you thought it was going to be and then you get lucky on a few guys –. An example I always use is, you look at the Patriots. Whether you’re a fan of them or not you have to respect that organization for what they’ve achieved. Let’s also be honest. They got lucky. Maybe the greatest draft choice in the history of the NFL is Tom Brady in the sixth round. If you can get lucky on a few it’s going to have a dramatic impact. I think that’s what we did. I think we had a class who we feel really good about from top to bottom. Then I think there are a couple guys who have huge ceilings who are going to come in and do some really special things. Coaching is important, development is important, but it comes down to players. Saquon Barkely has had huge impact. Trace McSorely has had a huge impact. Jason Cabinda, I could go on and on. I feel great about the class from top to bottom.
…
“Football is a very humbling experience for all of us, myself included. The best thing you can do with these recruits, who have ben going around the country for two years and everybody has been patting them on the back, telling them how wonderful they are. The best thing that happens to those guys (is when) they show up and a 21- or 22-year old senior knocks them on their rear end and puts them on the ground and stands over them and says, "Welcome to college football rookie! I could care less about your Rivals or 247 rankings." The last couple years we didn't have that because they showed up and they had to be in the two deep right away, so these guys need to be humbled. They need to earn their roles and we are in a place where that’s happening again, which is great. I’m really pleased with what is going on."
Here are some of the highlights...
Non-travel scrimmages each Thursday night…
"After we broke (practice tonight) we had a young guy scrimmage. Every Thursday night I’m going to come here and we’re going to keep the 3s and 4s on the depth chart there for 15 more minutes to do scrimmage. I just like where we’re at as an organization. The players kind of understand the culture and how we work and how we train and how we prepare. The staff has a really good understanding of how we want to do things. The administration, everybody. We just have a well-oiled machine right now. We gained a lot of experience last year and confidence. But also everybody understands this is a new team. We’ve got to be willing to take care of all the details and approach it as if last year didn’t exist."
Developing talent vs. maintaining…
“It’s harder to maintain. Same thing with not just the player but the program. I think you work extremely hard to get to the level that we got to last year, but we’re not going to sneak up on anybody anymore. We’ve kind of established a culture. It’s much more challenging and it’s much more difficult to sustain and continue inching in the direction we want to go. I think you go from good to great. Then you get to great and you want to get to elite, which is where we’re really trying to get. Then be able to sustain it. … Last year was a nice step but we still have a lot of work to do. We want to be part of these types of conversations conference-wise and nationally consistently, year after year. We still have a lot of work to do to get there."
Preparing for week one's game without the benefit of a preseason scrimmage…
“Every other sport as well as (football) at every other level, you get to work the kinks out through scrimmages with other teams and things like that because you never know what you’re going get when you’re dealing with 18- to 22-year old males, the most unpredictable group of people on the planet. You go into that stadium in front of 107,000 fans and all the people watching at home on TV, some guys don’t handle that well. Other guys, they step up in that environment. That’s the hard thing to predict. You’d love to be able to work the kinks out with some type of scrimmage or preseason, but we don’t have the fortune of that. This year we went into the stadium a little bit more than we had in the past, to try to get guys comfortable in that environment. But I do think we have a more experienced team and that’s going to help as well.”
Special teams improvement…
“The thing I’m probably most proud of last year, and I don’t think it has been talked about enough, is the step we took on special teams. I think it’s one of those things that maybe isn’t sexy to talk about it, but the impact that it had on our season, the impact it had on our games, was dramatic. I see us getting better there. We’re an organization that doesn’t give our special teams lip service. Special teams is just as important as offense and defense and we treat it as such.
…
“We meet on special teams every single day. We have a team meeting, then we go special teams meeting and then we break into offense and defense and then position groups as well. We invest in it every area. We invest in it in scholarships. We invest in it with meeting time, and we invest in it with practice. I think when you do that, when you invest in anything in life, you have an opportunity to get a return on it. That’s what we want."
Evaluating the true freshman class...
"Obviously it was a very well-thought-of class. I always say that if your class can be as good as you thought it was going to be and then you get lucky on a few guys –. An example I always use is, you look at the Patriots. Whether you’re a fan of them or not you have to respect that organization for what they’ve achieved. Let’s also be honest. They got lucky. Maybe the greatest draft choice in the history of the NFL is Tom Brady in the sixth round. If you can get lucky on a few it’s going to have a dramatic impact. I think that’s what we did. I think we had a class who we feel really good about from top to bottom. Then I think there are a couple guys who have huge ceilings who are going to come in and do some really special things. Coaching is important, development is important, but it comes down to players. Saquon Barkely has had huge impact. Trace McSorely has had a huge impact. Jason Cabinda, I could go on and on. I feel great about the class from top to bottom.
…
“Football is a very humbling experience for all of us, myself included. The best thing you can do with these recruits, who have ben going around the country for two years and everybody has been patting them on the back, telling them how wonderful they are. The best thing that happens to those guys (is when) they show up and a 21- or 22-year old senior knocks them on their rear end and puts them on the ground and stands over them and says, "Welcome to college football rookie! I could care less about your Rivals or 247 rankings." The last couple years we didn't have that because they showed up and they had to be in the two deep right away, so these guys need to be humbled. They need to earn their roles and we are in a place where that’s happening again, which is great. I’m really pleased with what is going on."
