James Franklin details QB2, OL depth, more in post-practice Q&A

Penn State head coach James Franklin joined reporters on Wednesday evening for the last time ahead of his Nittany Lions’ opener with Nevada on Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

What’d he have to say?

Check out our transcript, edited lightly for clarity, here:

Penn State head coach James Franklin

Franklin names QB2

Franklin: Grunk for week one. It’s not for the season. It’s week one.

He just was a little bit more consistent from the beginning of the camp to the end. Same reason why I say for week one, because it was close. From the beginning of camp to the end, just a little bit more consistent. But we’re really excited about both of those guys. Both have shown flashes. Also, as you guys know, the Sunday practices where those guys play, that’s going to be important to continue evaluating them as the season goes on.

How many other position groups, if any, do you have where it’s that close? That you have a guy for week one, but will keep it going?
Franklin: Probably a lot, but you guys don’t care. You only ever talk about the backup quarterback. The difference, obviously, is that guy doesn’t play. The twos at other positions are going to rotate a lot. You look at our three tight ends and you could make a heck of an argument there. You look at our seven offensive linemen, you could make a heck of an argument there. The battle with Alonzo and Gilliam for two and three at D-tackle, you can make a heck of an argument there. Safety. But there’s a ton of positions. And I get it. It’s just not the same for you guys because you’re going to see those guys rotating in a lot, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

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On naming RB3
Franklin: Not yet. We’re still going to discuss that. We’ve had injuries, inconsistency. I’m not sure how that’ll play out. This week will play a big part in that. But if I had to guess, you’re going to see, if they have the opportunity, probably all three of those guys.

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In the trenches

Offensive tackle depth
Franklin: So it’ll be Rucci, Donkoh, Shelly, and then it’s kind of similar to what we’re talking about at running back. There’s a number of guys that would factor into the decision at that point, whether it’s Sexton or Aliciene. J’ven had a little bit of an injury that has limited his ability to practice full throttle. His practice modifications just changed today, so that’s impacted him as much as anything, or he’d be right there in the heat of it. I’m hoping he’ll be the guy that we’re talking about more right now. But I’m hoping we don’t have to go far past that.

Chaz Coleman expectations this week
Franklin: I think he’s gonna play a lot. It wouldn’t surprise me if he plays 30, 35 plays or so. I hate to say numbers, because once I do, he’s seen that, his mom has seen that, and you guys have wrote about it. But that would not surprise me.

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Difference in 4-3 vs. 4-2 this year
Franklin: It’s funny, because when I was at Vanderbilt, we were a 4-2-5 team. Now, I will say this. It was a kid that grew into a linebacker, but started his career at Vanderbilt as a corner. Then coming to Penn State, it’s hard to be at Penn State at LBU and not have three linebackers on the field. Some of that also, I think, was Brent Pry and his opinions. But it was the right thing to do, and we played really good defense doing it that way and then subbing to nickel when it was appropriate.

Last year was more about, how do we get our best 11 on the field? You can make the argument, we may have had the three best safeties in the country, a combination of three when they were all healthy. But obviously that changed significantly when we lost KJ Winston. For us to have KJ, Jay Reed, and Zakee on the field at the same time made a ton of sense.

So that was more just about, how do we get our best 11 on the field? And Jay Reed was such a multi-faceted player that could cover, blitz, defend the run, so it made a ton of sense. Once we lost him, it went back to more of a nickel personnel based on what they’re doing offensively, what the down and distance is. So this is more leading with 4-2-5, but then we’re going to have the ability to go sub package, and our sub package would be 4-3 now, which it was just the other way around. So it’s really tomatoes-tomatoes, right? It’s very similar, just depends on who you call base.

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Other items of note

More clarity on the RB3 situation
Franklin: I think for the most part, it’s the returners. It’s Cam and Corey and Quentin. Tikey has done some really good things that’s made him a part of the conversation. Jabree, when he’s been practicing, did some really nice things as well. But Jabree just got here in the summer. That makes things difficult. But really, those three guys and maybe a fourth.

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Special teams improvements
Franklin: I think last year, we did a really good job on special teams of being sound, of playing winning football. But I wouldn’t necessarily say that we won games on special teams, except maybe Minnesota. I thought we played complementary football with special teams. This year, we got a chance to do what we did in the Minnesota game and do that maybe a couple times this year, as well as playing winning football the other games too.

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On Nolan Rucci winning the starting right tackle job
Franklin: It was more about, how do we get our five best on the field? So it really had equally as much to do with the right guard battle. If Donkoh wouldn’t have been the best option at right guard, then it would have been a true competition at tackle. So it was really a combination of those two positions together. How do we get our best five on the field, even though we feel like we got seven guys that we can win with?

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On true freshman DT Randy Adirika
Franklin: Randy’s just very powerful. He’s a very smart football player. I could really see him play a little bit in the first couple weeks, if we get the opportunity to, and then maybe you don’t see him for a little bit. Then I could really see him being a guy that late in the season and postseason is a big part of the rotation.

That’s one of the notes I wrote down to talk about with the staff tomorrow. There’s the developmental process that we’ve gone to this point, but there should be another significant conversation around mid-season. There should be three to five guys that we’re talking about more significantly than we are now. And then it could be the same thing, game nine or 10. With the rules, with how many games they can play in, and the postseason rules and things like that, if we’re truly a developmental program, there should be some guys factoring in that you may not see much early in the season, but they just continue to get better and better.

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