Penn State Head Football Coach James Franklin Photo by: Michael Corsey @ Michael Corsey Photography

Penn State – Illinois
October 31, 2015

Opening Statement
Like always, I want to thank everybody for coming out. I couldn’t have asked for a better day in terms of weather and atmosphere. We started out the year with a bunch of bad weather games so it was great this time of the year to have that type of weather. Good win. Obviously, good win. We’re getting better – staying positive works. We’re getting better so I’ve been pleased with that.

Some highlights from the game: Troy Reeder with his first career interception, huge play. I don’t know whether this is a highlight or not, but the seventh offensive line combination to start in nine games. Brian Gaia is the only player to start every game so that’s been great. Carl Nassib has had a sack in nine-straight games, the longest streak at Penn State since 2000, since the NCAA stat started in 2000. The defense has had a sack in 31 straight games, the longest streak since sacks became an NCAA stat. The defense has had at least five tackles for loss in 16 games, the longest streak since 1997-00, so I guess 38 games. Christian Hackenberg, I think a lot of times people find reasons to be critical, to me the most important statistic is touchdown to interception ratio. He’s done a great job of that in our last six games, 12 touchdowns to zero interceptions. He has had four games with 250+ passing yards, so once again, Christian Hackenberg, positive stat I’m going to give you guys, 12 touchdown passes and zero interceptions. That is a very important statistic for quarterbacks. The 39-point win is the largest margin of victory in a Big Ten game since 2008 and the shutout is the first in a Big Ten game since Minnesota in 2009 and the largest shutout since 2002, so some positive things.

We have to get better, we had some issues in the first half with clock management. We were concerned that we were going to get a fake punt. We had some situations there we need to get cleaned up, when we went safe punt and they went with regular personnel, we need to just trade our free safety and our punt returner. It’s an easy change and we didn’t do a good job of changing that, but we’ll get that cleaned up and we’ll learn from it. But overall, I thought we did some nice things.

Q: You were able to keep them in a lot of second and third and long situations, how important was that and what were some of the keys to keeping them in those situations?
A: We looked at a couple of things, their quarterback, when he was pressured, we looked at those statistics and those were significant for us in our game plan. The other thing was man coverage. This is a guy I have tremendous respect for. I think he’s really, really accurate and we just felt like all week long we wanted to make sure that we were playing tight coverage, contestant coverage and whether it’s cover one, whether it’s two man, things like that, we wanted to disguise and hold our coverages as long as we possibly could because they’ve got a veteran play-caller, veteran quarterback and if you just line up and show them what you’re doing, then they have a chance to get the right play in. I think we did a good job of those things. Then we just mixed it up. We played some zone, mixed it in, zone pressures and I felt like Bob (Shoop) and the defensive staff kept them off balance for most of the day.

Q: Do you think this was your most complete game since you’ve been at Penn State and if so, why?
A: I’m not sure, I thought we played well. I thought we played well in all three phases. There are some things we need to get cleaned up. I was disappointed with the fumbled punt there at the end of the game that almost put us in a situation to lose the shutout. I thought we had a couple plays and opportunities to make plays where it turned into three and outs. We had some dropped balls but overall that’s being nit-picky. Overall, I thought we played really well. I thought offensively we mixed the run, the pass and the shots plays pretty well. We had some issues early on with our running backs in pass protection where we’d miss some things and we gave up some sacks, but overall we did well. The kicking situation, kicking the ball out of bounds and getting two PATs blocked, that was a combination of two things: the kicks were low and then we typically go live with PAT field goal in practice and we came out of the pads and we lost Chasz Wright, who has been starting for us at guard at 340 pounds. We pulled him out and put (Brendan) Mahon in that spot and we don’t get any live reps in practice and we got way too much push. We need to get those things cleaned up. We either need to put Mahon on a weight-gaining diet or we need to get big Chasz back.

Q: James, you talked about another offensive line, starting offensive line combination. Can you talk about the challenges that come along with having all these different combinations playing and just what your general assessment was of how they looked today?
A: I think it goes back to what we talked about earlier in the year. We got better practice depth, by that some positions like the offensive line, we still don’t have the type of game depth we need and what I mean by that is when your tackle goes down, we don’t have a backup tackle just to go in. So not only do you have backups coming into the game, but now when that backup comes, usually two other guys are moving positions. We just played a team that started the same five offensive linemen all year long, for two years now, that’s how we’ve had to manage it but it is what it is, we need to keep developing those young players in our roster and then we need to continue creating depth the way we’re doing it, by guys playing multiple positions. It’s not ideal because when you have an inexperienced guy and he’s not just focused on one position, you’re moving around in practice and you’re moving around in games. It causes some issues. Hopefully we’ll have Nelly (Andrew Nelson) back this week that would be helpful for us.

Q: You mentioned Christian (Hackenberg) seemed really sharp at the beginning of the game and his short passing game seemed to be improved. Is that something you guys have been focusing on? What did you see in those couple of elements?
A: We work on those things all the time, as you guys know, but I did think that starting out the game with an easy completion helped him. Then we went and ran a naked and the ball was a little bit low and the receiver went down and got it and made a play for him early, so he was able to get into a rhythm and there are some games where either we’d miss some throws or drop some balls and that’s hard to get into a rhythm. I thought we started a lot cleaner as a football team this week and like I said, I think quarterbacks are graded by touchdown-interception ratio, third down percentage, red zone and obviously, most importantly, wins and losses. In a lot of those statistics, he’s doing really well so I’m pleased with him. I’m pleased with the whole offense and how they battled through it and like I said earlier, staying positive works.

Q: Christian (Hackenberg) had seven completions from seven different receivers today, continuing to get more players involved in the offense how is that an important part?
JF: Yeah I think it’s been great, I screamed at one point during the game. You’ve got receivers making plays, you’ve got tight ends making plays, you’ve got multiple running backs making plays. We’re working hard to develop these guys, we’re working hard coming up with ways to get guys touches and space so they can make plays and those guys are coming through, and I think what’s nice compare to maybe last year when you game plan for us it’s not stop this guy there are multiple guys that can hurt you. So obviously (Mike) Gesicki coming in making plays, it’s just been good, it’s good to see a lot of guys getting involved that creates a healthy locker room and that creates opportunities for a bunch of guys to impact the game in whatever role they might have.

Q: You talked a few weeks ago about gadget plays, saw a great one today with Christian (Hackenberg) catching the touchdown pass, so what did you see in that play, was that in the bag for a couple of weeks?
JF: Yeah, most of our plays like that, it’s not like we just started working on them on Thursday these are plays we’ve worked for multiple weeks, multiple looks kind of letting them marinate, waiting for the right time to call them and building confidence in practice but yeah I thought Hack was awesome today made a bunch of big throws, that one scramble he had I was like, ‘Throw it away,’ and he kind of made that guy miss and then the next guys comes up and I’m like, ‘Throw it away,’ and then he gets to first down I’m like, ‘Awesome!’ *claps* Just the way we planned it, and then he catches a touchdown pass. Some guys are pro-style passers, some guys are dual-threat passers, and then some guys hurt you in all three phases and that’s Hack. He can hurt you with his legs, he can hurt you as a receiver, and he can hurt you as a passer, awesome.

Q: It must have made you feel real good with that third down, you must have had some great adjustments at halftime because in the third period you were five for five in the red zone, only one penalty through three periods, and that’s a real shut down. And they had 138 yards offense at half and at the end of the third period they had 132, minus six. Well you only dream about periods like that.
JF: I’ll tell you what, you know what, I love you. You never ask me a question, you make really positive statements. I would really strongly recommend in the future you sit right here in Corey’s chair, make a switch. And then after your comment about my physique last week it kind of motivated me, so I worked out two days this week so thank you very much sir.

Q: Your last three games of the season, it’s a difficult stretch what did todays win, specifically the shutout do from a conflict standpoint to put your team on the best foot going forward into those final three games?
JF: I’m enjoying todays win, we’re 1-0 this week, we had a good win, fans came out and supported us, we had a great environment. Driving that bus from the hotel to through all the tailgaters and the RV’s is awesome. We’re going to enjoy this win, in the press conference I’ll talk about next week at our media, after practice session I’ll talk about next week. I’m not talking about a three game stretch, I’m talking about Illinois and the great win we had today, I love the 12 o’clock games, I know nobody else does, but I love them because we get to go see our families for a couple hours after the game and enjoy it. I want our guys to go out and enjoy themselves tonight, make great choices and represent Penn State the right way, and wake up tomorrow and get back to work.

Q: Coach, after last week’s win against Maryland you said that you were hoping for a little bit of an easier one to come along your way, was this that easier win or at least did you have a little bit more fun this week?
JF: Nothing is easy, nothing is easy in the Big Ten, nothing is easy with the work that we have here at Penn State. I thought we capitalized on some opportunities tonight is what we did. I’ve got a lot of respect for University of Illinois, got a lot of respect for their coaching staff and their players, and we are just fortunate that we made some plays tonight and we played together as a family. I’m proud of our guys, we are getting better, we didn’t start out the season the way any of us would have liked, a lot of people wanted us to panic, we’re not going to, we are going to stay positive, we’re going to love these kids, we’re going to stick together as a family, we’re going to keep coaching, we’re going to get better, and I think that is what we are doing, and we need to do that again this week. The players made a case for us to modify practice again like we did last week, it worked for us. We will look at doing that again.

Q: James, did you know their offensive line is quite good at protecting the quarterback and in the first quarter they did that. Then you started to get to it a little more what changed, what adjustments were made?
JF: I don’t think really a whole lot changed, that’s kind of who we are if you go back and look at us, we wear people down with our pass rush a lot of our sacks and a lot of our production in terms of pressures and sacks come later in the games. That’s because we rotate a lot of guys and keep them fresh, that’s because at spots like Carl Nassib we’re big and physical you have 275-pound defensive end who brings it every play wear them down. We’ve got four guys that can make plays Garrett Sickles is really starting to come on for us right now. I think that’s kind of more our MO, our defensive staff kind of gets more comfortable with what they’re doing and then our D-line just kind of wears people down as the game goes on and it creates opportunities. I think the other thing is, let’s be honest, they’re a throwing team so you’re going to get a lot of opportunities so I think it’s more a combination of those things than us going in and recreating the wheel at half time.