James Franklin on opening season on the road: 'We embrace it'

Penn State has one of the tougher road tests of any Power 4 team to start the 2024 season, heading a few hours southwest to Morgantown for a date with West Virginia. But head coach James Franklin welcomes the challenge.

And starting on the road is something that Penn State has grown accustomed to in recent years, opening the season away from home three of the last four seasons. So, as the Nittany Lions gear up for a fourth road game in five years to start the season, Franklin struck and excited tone.

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“It’s great,” Franklin said. “The Big Ten has prepared us for road games very well to open the season and to open the conference. So we embrace it.”

Penn State has gone 2-1 in the three road game openers — all conference opponents — from 2020 to 2022. The first, a 36-35 loss to Indiana, came on the infamous play at the pylon for then-Hoosier quarterback Michael Penix Jr. Then the Nittany Lions opened the 2021 campaign with a 16-10 win in a slugfest at Wisconsin before outlasting Purdue, 35-31, to start the 2022 season.

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After opening the season against West Virginia in Beaver Stadium last year, Penn State is returning the trip and hitting the road.

And for all the obstacles a road environment to begin the season will present, Franklin is confident that the previous crucibles his team has been in will serve them well on Saturday at noon.

“Obviously when you think about Purdue, going on the road to Purdue to open the season, that was I think a pretty good environment and a tough game, as you guys saw,” Franklin said. “So this is going to be a tough game, tough environment. Got a lot of respect for them, they’re confident after how their season ended. So it’s going to be a challenge. But I do think we have enough veterans coming back that have opened in some of these games and that’s helpful.”

There might be some added motivation on the other sideline

Penn State tacked on a late touchdown last season against West Virginia, scoring with six seconds remaining in the game in its 38-15 win. West Virginia head coach coach Neal Brown hasn’t forgotten about the Nittany Lions late score, but he also isn’t necessarily using it as motivation.

Brown was asked at his press conference on Monday if he bas brought up the late touchdown in an effort to motivate his team.

“It just is what it is, you know,” Brown said. “Like, I’m really not using it. It just kind of is what it is, you know. Like, they scored late. I don’t really have necessarily a problem with it. … But it is what it is.”

Brown added that if his West Virginia team needs a late touchdown from a season ago to get motivated against its rival, the Mountaineers have some other issues to sort out.

“Here’s the thing, like, if our guys need something like that to motivate them, then eh,” Brown said. “But I will say this, the score of the game’s the score of the game. And we didn’t play very well.”