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James Franklin shares how he makes starting lineup changes

On3 imageby:Andrew Graham•11/03/22•

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STATE COLLEGE, PA - OCTOBER 01: Head coach James Franklin of the Penn State Nittany Lions leads the team onto the field before the game against the Northwestern Wildcats at Beaver Stadium on October 1, 2022 in State College, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)

Be it for injury, a younger player improving their play or any number of reasons, a mid-season starting lineup change is pretty commonplace in college football. Penn State head coach James Franklin shared recently how it’s not really a big deal, behind the scenes.

Basically, Franklin said, the coaches will get together and make a determination, usually in the middle of the week for a bigger change. There’s rarely some big announcement to the team or any such fanfare, just a flip on the depth chart.

“Typically we don’t make announcements to the team,” Franklin said. “But it’s during the week. I mean sometimes, obviously, it could happen on game day and things like that. But it’s typically during the week. We’ll start to make some adjustments as the week goes on, to our practice, depending on how it plays out. And then we have a discussion as a staff and the coaches have a discussion during the week on ‘What is the rotation going to be on Saturday?’ And unless it’s something dramatic, a big change, then we don’t really talk about it until Saturday morning.”

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Penn State has platooned players along the offensive line and has slotted in a few different defenders in as starts at various spots.

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As Franklin explains it, most of those decisions happen even the morning of the game. It’s not out of the blue — coaches and staffers know who is rising and pushing for time — but the actual call and change often comes mere hours before the game.

But for a bigger decision — say, for instance, swapping out longtime starting quarterback Sean Clifford for highly-touted freshman Drew Allar, a move certain Penn State fans have clamored for — Franklin said the coaches would be discussing and making the call on that a few days prior, at least.

“But if there’s something significant that happened, then we’ll have a discussion, probably Wednesday, Thursday,” Franklin said.