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Penn State

James Franklin shares how much public perception weighed into fake punt call

On3 imageby: Andrew Graham11/27/24AndrewEdGraham
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Penn State head coach James Franklin. (Photo credit: Frank Hyatt/BWI)

James Franklin made a bold call to get Penn State out of Minnesota with a win on Saturday, dialing up a fake punt to convert a 4th and 1 late in the fourth quarter. And it’s a call that would’ve led to plenty of scrutiny had it gone awry.

Franklin has taken heat for a number of in-game decisions in the past, and he knows this call could’ve come back to bite him in terms of public reaction. But that was never a consideration as he was making the decision to put the fake on.

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“At the moment? No,” Franklin said of considerations about how fans and outsiders would react. “After the case, when everybody is sending messages and saying ‘Wow, great decision, that was awesome, I love it.’ Why? Because it worked. If it didn’t work, Mike, you wouldn’t be having fun with me talking about the fried turkey or the roasted turkey — you would be roasting James Franklin. And I totally get that.”

Franklin continued, and explained that he was comfortable making the call because of the confidence he has in the players running it. He specifically heaped praise on offensive lineman Dominic Rulli.

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“But, again, when you’ve got Dom Rulli as your quarterback and you have Luke Reynolds carrying the ball and you have DaKaari Nelson and [Tyler] Elsdon and Cooper Cousins and we’ve repped it 1000 times and I’ve called it probably six times this year and we’ve checked out of it because it wasn’t the right look,” Franklin said. “We’ve checked out of it because it wasn’t the right look. And we’ve had a ton of reps at it, it gives you a ton of confidence because of the men, the young men on that unit and how they’ve executed it every single day at practice and the trust that they’ve built with me in terms of ‘We’re not going to run it into a bad look’ and Dom Rulli’s done a great job of that all year long.”

He continued, affirmed his confidence in his players to execute the play when the right look was on.

“So at the time, I did not think like that because No. 1 we were trying to win the game and I felt like it gave us the best chance to win the game,” Franklin said. “And No. 2, because of how these guys have repped that and handled that in practice and all year long. So, Dom Rulli’s has earned that right to allow me to call that play based on how he’s conducted himself, not just this year but over his time at Penn State, he’s been awesome.”