Penn State head coach James Franklin met with the media again Tuesday via Zoom for his weekly press conference coming off a third win in as many tries to start the Nittany Lions' 2021 season.

This time the victor of a 28-20 decision against Top 25 Auburn Saturday night in front of a packed Beaver Stadium crowd, Franklin offered his appreciation and perspective of a game that saw the Nittany Lions overcome more than just the Tigers. Detailing his frustrations at length at the end of the press conference, and his 'interpretation' of the rules in question, the officiating was just one piece of his press conference on the day.

Also discussing the first action for graduate transfer running back John Lovett in the win, as well as some of the players that have stood out so far this season, let's wrap our look at his weekly press conference with some of the loose ends to come out of the session.

Below, our James Franklin weekly press conference notebook:

Flatly, no.

Asked whether or not Penn State's quarterback had changed the perception of himself through his performances this season, including a career night completing 28 of 32 passes for 280 yards and two touchdowns Saturday night against the Tigers, Franklin rebuffed the very notion of the question.

"Two years ago, Sean won 11 games, we won the Cotton Bowl, a New Year's Six bowl game, did some really good things. Coming in the last year, he was viewed as one of the top quarterbacks in the Big Ten, one of the top quarterbacks in the country, and my view of him never really changed," Franklin said. "Obviously there's ups and downs and twists and turns in everybody's career, but this is the Sean Clifford that I've always expected and anticipated."

Through the course of the press conference, Franklin also noted that he believed Clifford's effort was such that it should have garnered the Big Ten's Offensive Player of the Week honors. That nod instead went to Michigan State's Payton Thorne and Ohio State's TreVeyon Henderson in a Co-Offensive Player of the Week circumstance.

Penn State landed just one verbal commitment from a weekend in which it expected to host as many as 350 recruits and their friends and families, but that was not the primary indicator of success for the Nittany Lions in the recruiting sphere.

Rather, welcoming a packed sideline full of recruiting visitors before the game, many of whom had the opportunity to mingle with New York Giants star running back and former Nittany Lion great Saquon Barkley and others, Franklin pointed to the whole experience as one of great value to Penn State.

"I thought we did a tremendous job with not only the number of recruits that we had on campus but high end, priority recruits. I thought we did a great job of getting them here. It's really important to see it because I do think it's a differentiator for us, our game day environment," Franklin said. "I thought our pregame, I thought our administration, our pregame from week one to week two was really strong, and I thought the energy in the stadium and the music and the sound system, I thought it was really well-organized."

That organization, Franklin continued, very much extended to the efforts of the entire staff within Penn State football both coaches, support staff, and a crew of interns that have proven themselves invaluable to the cause.

"And then I thought our staff did a great job. There's a lot going on and you want people to feel special and have a great experience and we work hard at doing that. But there's a lot of moving parts to it. So I think some of the expanded staff has helped with that," Franklin said. "We have a tremendous group of interns, student interns that work with us, that do a fantastic job. It's great experience for them. If you look at our staff, it's amazing how many of our full time staff members are former interns in our office, and that number continues to grow, which is great. But overall, I thought it was really good.

"Obviously as the head coach there's a lot of different hats you wear on game weekends, and having a real strong staff like we do behind the scenes kind of helping getting all those things organized makes it go."

More on this Wednesday, but Franklin pointed repeatedly to the resiliency of his team through the course of the game.

Not only taking on a talented Tigers outfit with talented, physical, athletic performers, Franklin also said that his Nittany Lions suffered some in-game setbacks throughout that might have derailed the effort.

"I thought we were very resilient during the game, for a lot of different reasons, which I'll let you guys get into," Franklin said. "I thought our mentality and our physical and mental toughness was really good. I thought our overall effort and effort we played with, and the will to win was really good."

For as many signs as Franklin saw for encouragement and optimism coming out of the win, the Nittany Lions' head coach didn't hesitate to highlight the areas still remaining for improvement as Villanova comes to town.

And he discussed those areas as a few specific points, noting situational awareness as a potential spot for improvement, ball security coming off a fumble that was recovered, and one particular problem spot defensively.

"I think we got to be better in our wrap tackling," Franklin said. "There's times where we're throwing shoulders and the better ball carriers we face are going to keep their balance and come out of some of those tackles, so we got to wrap more consistently. But not only wrap more consistently from a tackling perspective but the more shoulders that we throw, the more likely you're going to get calls for targeting because of head to head contact when you throw shoulders. We want to make sure that we're getting that cleaned up.

Further, coming off another game in which the Nittany Lion defense built its takeaways for the season to six, now just three takeaways shy of its total for the 2020 season, Franklin said even more can be done in that department.

"Turnover opportunities, we got to capitalize on, so when we get an opportunity to get a turnover, we got to capitalize," Franklin said. "Our guys have done a great job of investing and getting on the JUGS Machine and full speed scoop and scores and things like that in practice. We gotta continue to do that because they are game-changing plays. Could be season-changing plays. So we want to make sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to capitalize on those opportunities."

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