Everything Penn State coach James Franklin said on Wednesday before FIU

Penn State coach James Franklin held his final news conference of FIU week on Wednesday as the Lions continue to prepare to host the Panthers on Saturday at Beaver Stadium (Noon ET, BTN). The first question sougth an update on veteran defensive end Zuriah Fisher. He missed the opener. But, he was close to playing, Franklin said on Monday.

“Yeah, I would still think though, even in this game, even if he wants to, we’ll probably only play him a limited amount of reps,” Franklin said Wednesday. “But right now, he’s a go.”

Watch and read everything else Franklin had to say just days before Penn State-FIU below.

On the Penn State coaches box now being on the east side of Beaver Stadium: 

“Yeah, there’s definitely some advantages in terms of, to be quite honest, people stealing signals and things like that,” Franklin said. “So there’s some advantages to doing it that way. We felt like it’s been a problem in the past. We had the opportunity to move. We wanted to move. Make some things a little bit more difficult on people. So that’s probably the biggest reason.”

On the status of cornerback Zion Tracy, who missed the opener:

“He’s ready to go,” Franklin said. “He’s practiced all week long, including Sunday. So, we’re anticipating him ready to go. There’ll be two significant guys that we’ll get back, veterans, that have played a decent amount of football for us.”

On how CB Kenny Woseley Jr., played in Tracy’s absence:

“I thought Woos did a nice job,” Franklin said. “He’s a high football IQ guy. You know, obviously, Zion’s played a ton of football for us. So having him back is significant. But, Woseley did some nice things in the game, and we’ll continue to find a way to rotate him in and get him some work. But obviously having have Zion back is significant.”

On how Penn State freshman corner Jahmir Joseph played in the opener

“Yeah, we’re excited about that whole [freshmen defensive back] group,” Franklin said. “There’s a bunch of these young guys that we’re hoping continue to approach this the right way. He’s one of these guys I could see, later in the season, maybe having a different conversation with how we’re using him.

“Probably didn’t come in the way Daryus [Dixson] did in terms of just kind of how quickly he picked it up and how he was approaching it. But very mature, very strong, physically put together already, doesn’t look like a freshman. Consistency, like all these guys; there’s still a little bit of an issue at times. But overall, we’ve been very, very pleased with him and anticipate him playing at some point this year. We’ll see how this develops.”

On Penn State redshirt freshman offensive lineman Eagan Boyer

“He’s another guy that’s cleared for this week and available,” Franklin said. “I think when he got here, he was like 238 pounds. So the fact that he’s over 300 pounds is amazing. Still skinny on a [6-foot-8] frame. But yeah, he practiced today. He did most of practice yesterday. So, he’s cleared and ready to go, as long as there were no issues through today’s practice.”

On the play of starting CB Antoine Belgrave-Shorter in the opener

“Overall, good,” Franklin said. “There’s a lot more on those guys’ plate from a communication standpoint. And we need to improve there a little bit. But very pleased with Belgrave. We think we got four guys that we can win with and probably a fifth. He’s a guy that’s doing some really good things. Earned the starting job. Was very consistent all training camp. Created a bunch of turnovers as well. A guy we’re expecting to take a big step this week between week one and week two.”

On the Lions’ non-conference scheduling strategy

“It’s a little bit of strategy, and it’s a little bit of kind of the predicament we’re in,” Franklin said. “For us, we want to put ourselves in the best position to get into conference play as healthy and as confident as we possibly can be to make a run in conference play. But as you guys know, we have played West Virginia, home and home. We played Pitt home and home. We played Auburn home and home. We were supposed to be playing Virginia Tech this year. I don’t know if everybody realizes that. But we had Virginia Tech scheduled during COVID. When we didn’t go there; that game got canceled because of COVID. We just played conference games. They didn’t want to, obviously, keep the other end of that schedule, which was this year, so that was part of the reason that we’re in the predicament we’re in. 

“But again, I think you can make arguments both ways. I don’t really have an issue with either model. We have found a way to be successful in both of them, but we want to make sure that we find a way to win this game, that we play well and get better, and that we stay as healthy as we possibly can. 

“That’s playing 73 guys as part of that, gaining that experience, and also limiting guys’ reps. We’d love to be able to do that again, if possible. Most importantly, we got to win the game.”

On if getting more explosive plays is about taking more shots or calling them

“I think it’s a combination of both,” Franklin said. “And I think it’s also what I talked about after the game, how they’re defending us. It wouldn’t surprise me this week if it’s a similar model, where they’re snapping the ball under five and playing some type of soft middle field open or middle of the field closed defense, with the idea that they’re going to keep everything in front of them. We’ll see how that goes.

“But yeah, obviously being explosive is a big part of our identity and who we want to be. I also think not punting is also not bad.”

On Gabe Nwosu being the new Penn State punter

“Like I mentioned before, his ‘A’ ball is as good as any a ball we’ve had here, and it was about consistency,” Franklin said. “He’s been more consistent right now, and did a really nice job through training camp, not only on kickoff, but punt, and also field goal. 

“He’s a legitimate guy in all three aspects right now. So we’ve been very pleased with him. Hopefully you won’t see him again Saturday, but if he does, and we’re expecting him to do what he did in camp all year, which is punt for obviously great distance, location, and hang time.”

Could Nwosu be a long field goal kicker for the Lions?

“He could be a long field goal guy for us,” Franklin said. “He made a 62-yarder that would have been good from probably 66 in the stadium. So he could be a long field goal, end of the half, end of the game type guy.”

How does Penn State prepare for non-conference games early in the year?

“Yeah, for these games, it’s hard when it’s an early-season game and a new staff,” Franklin said. “So special teams coordinator’s at one place, offensive coordinator was at another place, the defense coordinator, the head coach; that’s the challenge, right? What film do you watch? What philosophy have they decided to go with? You got one game to really go off of, so at the end of the day, that’s why we practice against each other all training camp, because we got rules to handle everything, whether on defense, it’s empty or it’s unbalanced or whatever it may be. 

“On offense, whether it’s cover zero, we have answers. So if we see something in the game that we haven’t necessarily practiced or anticipated for, then you just follow your rules. And we have ways of putting our guys in the best position to be successful just by following their base rules on how we handle these things.”

Does he care about the NIKE/Adidas discourse regarding Penn State possibly switching from the former to the latter?

“At this point, I do not,” Franklin said. “That’s something that the administration is working on. I mean, obviously, I have an awareness of what’s going on, but we’re focused on our opponent for Saturday.”

On FIU wanting to be an uptempo team and the challenge that could pose Penn State

“We’ll see,” Franklin said. “I think it’s one thing, in theory, that’s who they may want to be. It’s another thing to see if that’s how they’ll be against us. So there’s some challenges. Obviously, their quarterback is the preseason Conference Player of the Year. Their return specialist is the preseason Conference Player of the Year. They do some nice things schematically. Ton of RPOs on offense, have used the mobility of the quarterback, so they create some challenges.

“There’s no doubt about it: They’re bigger on both fronts than what we faced last week. So we’ll see how all those things play out. The competition that they played last week is a little bit different than us. So again, watching that tape is good, but it creates some challenges to kind of figure out what’s going to translate to this type of game compared to last week’s game.”