Penn State head coach James Franklin met with the media Tuesday afternoon for his normal weekly press conference at Beaver Stadium, this being the last of the Nittany Lions’ 2019 regular season.
With Rutgers on tap and a 28-17 loss to Ohio State in the rearview mirror, let’s run through the news, notes, and observations of what Franklin had to say this week:
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1) Before taking any questions or opening with his usual recap of the previous game and look ahead to the next opponent, Franklin offered two statements.
The first regarded the passing of longtime ABC27 sportscaster Gregg Mace, offering his condolences to Mace’s family and friends following his passing due to a longterm complication from an unspecified illness over the weekend.
The second part came in response to an ESPN Outside the Lines report in which former Penn State director of athletic medicine Dr. Scott A. Lynch accused Franklin of unethical pressures including not revealing the extent of injuries to players and influencing other medical decisions.
Franklin, Tuesday, offered a prepared statement in response, noting that he had not yet seen the report.
“We are pleased that our highly-regarded program has moved forward under the direction -- the outstanding direction of a national leader in orthopedic sports medicine,” Franklin said. “I think you guys all know, you're at practice all the time, as well as our administration, that protecting the health and wellbeing of our student-athletes is the single most important priority at Penn State, always has been, always will. And that's certainly true really for all of our student-athletes. Nothing is more important than the health of our players and ensuring that they get the right medical treatment. The success of our program starts and ends there, really.”
2) Kicking off the press conference that way, it came full-circle when Franklin was asked during his last question about a report that had surfaced from Yahoo reporter Pete Thamel just minutes earlier saying Penn State redshirt sophomore receiver Justin Shorter had put his name into the NCAA transfer portal.
Offering few specifics, Franklin revealed that the reason he hadn’t been able to take in the Outside the Lines report was that he had been in another meeting discussing Shorter’s decision at the time.
“Yeah, to be honest with you, that's why I didn't know about the other report because I was sitting in a meeting with that,” Franklin said. “I think sometimes when I say I haven't read the report or saw the report, you guys don't necessarily always believe me. But I was in another meeting, and I don't know enough.
“We're just having a conversation and walking out when I came here. I'm not sure where we're at. It was a conversation that was had. It was a conversation that was had.”
Shorter is fifth on the team in receptions this season with 12 for 137 yards and no touchdowns in 10 games. He missed two games due to an unspecified injury earlier in the season.
Coming out of the Nittany Lions’ loss at Minnesota, Shorter was bumped from his starting spot that he’d held when healthy this season. He was replaced by former walk-on Dan Chisena.
3) Other personnel news to come out of the press conference surrounded the topic of quarterback Sean Clifford, who left Saturday’s loss at Ohio State in the third quarter due to an unspecified leg injury.
Though Franklin typically does not discuss injuries or their ramifications with any level of detail, the head coach did offer some news on Tuesday.
“I know you guys hate to hear this, but it'll be a game-time decision. It's really probably magnified this week, but it's been a little bit like this for the last three, four weeks with him,” Franklin said. “I really could see a situation where Will [Levis] plays this week. Now, how much he plays, I'm not sure. But I could see us playing Will this week, and Will is going to have to get a little bit more reps in practice just because Sean is not ready to take the normal amount of reps that he normally would.”
Franklin added that a decision would need to be made between rotating third-string true freshman quarterbacks Michael Johnson and Ta’Quan Roberson if Levis were to become the de facto starter in place of an injured Clifford.
“We’ll follow medical recommendations like we always do on what they're able to do today and what he's able to do tomorrow. And then between what the doctors and trainers and what Sean says, we'll factor into it,” Franklin said. “I will tell you, Sean is not the easiest guy, just like Trace wasn't, to pull off the field. They're competitors. But at the end of the day, those will be medical decisions.”
In response to another question, Franklin added his pleasure at the development he's seen from both Clifford and Levis this season at the quarterback position.
4) The second part of that equation, of course, being that Levis stepped up in a big way in Penn State’s loss in Columbus this past weekend.
In Clifford’s absence, trailing the Buckeyes 21-0 at the time, Levis helped push the Nittany Lions into the end zone twice and set up a field goal for 17 unanswered points in the third quarter. And though Levis wasn’t able to continue his run of success, which included a 6-of-11 mark passing for 57 yards and 34 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries, the performance was enough to encourage Franklin about what the Nittany Lions have in Levis moving forward in his career.
“I sent him a text. I think it was remarkable. You go in on the road against a top-two team… against a team that's got tremendous talent and playing with a lot of confidence, and that he went in and not only did he play well, but also the team believed,” Franklin said. “I think that's important, that the team believed in him, as well. We didn't flinch. Times were tough. We didn't flinch. Will went in and made plays. Our defense made plays. We ran the ball. We just kind of kept battling.”
Acknowledging that Levis and the Nittany Lion offense “didn’t handle the crowd noise well at the end,” Franklin continued in saying that the foundation is there to improve upon moving forward.
“There are things that need to be corrected, but I'm proud of them. You guys know, I talk about him, and we have a lot of hope for his future and excited and all those types of things. But for Sean to have done what he's done so far this year probably exceeds everybody's expectations for a first-year starter. And then to get an injury and for Will to come in and battle and do what he did is great, and we take a lot of pride in that. I know Will does, as well,” Franklin said. “I also know that we've got to get better, and I also know Will knows he has to get better, but we also have kind of a better framework now to know what we need to work on. It's one thing to do it in practice, it's another thing to do it in games, so it gives us a very clear understanding of where Will is at, what we have with him, and it gives Will a very good understanding where he's at. We're excited.”
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5) Coming off the loss to the No. 2-ranked Buckeyes, with an opportunity to improve to 10-2 on the season with a win against lowly Rutgers Saturday afternoon back at Beaver Stadium to round out the regular season, Franklin was asked if he is bothered that “relative to the challenges you’ve faced this year and relative to the questions that you had going into this year, that” he has felt the need to push back on a narrative of underachievement.
Franklin’s answer, in full:
“Yes. Yes. But you know, that's part of it. Again, I've said to you guys before, you don't fill up a 107,000-seat stadium without passion. The funny thing is -- well, we've got to win this game because this game is a big game. They're all big. Was Michigan big when we played them? Was that a big one? I think so. But then we win it, and they're just like me, they're on to the next task. Well, you'd better win this one.
“I get it. Again, I think if you take your bias out of it and you take your fan out of it and you step away and you look at the data, the data is pretty helpful for me. But it's a fine line because I know where we want to be. I know where they want us to be. But you would hope there are times where -- where did most people have us coming into the season and where are we? You look at our consistency, which I think -- what would you rather have? Would you rather have one year where you spike up and then two average years? And if you look, I think the most telling statistic is consistency. And for us, if you look at us over the last four years, pretty good. I think when you can say out of 132 Division I programs, there are only five programs in the country that have had the level of consistency that we've had -- or six, whatever it may be -- it's pretty good.
“And I'm just a big believer, if you keep doing that and you keep chipping away, and you keep identifying areas where you still lack and have weaknesses and you improve those areas, that that consistency and that attention to detail and that kind of mastery of approach -- where you're never satisfied and you're always trying to get better in every single thing -- that you're going to start to either raise the level of consistency to a whole other level, or at the very least, you're going to be consistent and then be able to have a year where things just fall right for you.
“But I also know, and you guys have heard me talk about this before, when we got here, if you would say, okay, where was the program, where were we at, where were our weaknesses, where were things we needed to overcome, we've done a lot of those things. There are still things left that we need to do.
“And I think probably the last thing I would say that's important -- I don't want my answers to ever come off like I'm satisfied because I can guarantee you, I am not. I am not. And neither are our players, and neither is the staff. But I do think there comes a point where you look at the big picture and you say, wow, there's a lot to be proud of. And there are some programs that are doing it football-wise but maybe not academically, and there are some programs that are doing it football-wise and academically but maybe not socially.
“I think we're doing it in all those areas at a pretty high level. We want to get better. We want to get to a 100 percent graduation rate because it's never okay for one of our guys not to graduate. We want to get to a point where there are no issues. And I get emails when there are noise disturbances in the dorms or we had too many guys in the elevator. I want to get rid of all those things, too. Our guys make mistakes, but I think over my time here and the course of our time here, it's been pretty good. And then being able to be successful on the field.
“I think big picture and holistically, I'm proud of what we've accomplished, but I'm not satisfied. And I think 96, 97 percent of our fan base feels the same way.”
6) That said, Franklin was also asked at the press conference about whether or not there were any moral victories to be gained by playing tough against an Ohio State team that has been a juggernaut this season.
Offering some nuance about how the program views losses and closing the gap with its consistent Big Ten East Division foe, Franklin was resolute.
“No, there are no moral victories. I mean, we've played that team as well or as good as anybody in the country but not well enough. There are no moral victories,” Franklin said. “There's positives, which I showed the team on Sunday. There are positives to be seen. There always is. Each week we do that on Sundays. We show clips of championship habits, of plays that when we're all working together and focused and executing who and what we can be and we show them.”
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