James Franklin calls Penn State experts of opening Big Ten play on the road

This weekend, James Franklin will lead the Penn State Nittany Lions on the road to take on Illinois. It’s the opening of Big Ten play and a position that Franklin thinks the team is getting comfortable in.

That’s because Penn State has started Big Ten play on the road every season since 2016. In fact, in the entire James Franklin tenure, Penn State had only opened up conference play at home twice. So, by now, Franklin thinks his teams are expert at it.

“I’m not sure,” James Franklin said. “We’re just experts on opening on the road, whether it’s the first game, the second game, the third game, the fourth game. Not only in my 10 years but in the last 15 years. I think we’re gonna put on an offseason clinic on how to open in the Big Ten.”

In those road games to open Big Ten play, Penn State has gone an impressive 5-2 over the last seven seasons. The only two losses that Penn State suffered were in 2016 to Michigan and in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season to Indiana.

Even when Penn State is playing non-conference opponents, they’ve typically started with road games. Because of that, Franklin was incredibly excited about the opportunity to start this season at home against West Virginia.

“There’s a lot of excitement around the program,” Franklin said. “We had a quarterback club luncheon today. It was record numbers, it was packed. It was a great environment and energy. I think it’ll be like that Saturday night as well.”

James Franklin addressed the plan for deciding the travel roster for road games

Ahead of the trip to Illinois, James Franklin broke down the plan for deciding on a travel roster for road games.

“Typically we announce those on Thursday, even to the players. They don’t even completely know yet because those last two or three spots are based on practice and how practice goes. Obviously if somebody tweaks something then we’ve got to make some moves and make some changes, so that’s usually pretty fluid until Thursday morning after the staff meeting, typically,” Franklin said.

“We typically try to rotate through, that all those guys will get that travel experience. So the first time that they’re doing it it isn’t the first time they’re playing in a game, they kind of understand what the expectations are. So whether it’s a home game travel to stay at the hotel or whether it’s on the road to get the full experience, we try to rotate through when we can to allow those guys, especially the guys that we think are going to really factor in for us next year, [to get experience].”