Everything Penn State coach James Franklin said after the Lions 45-37 Big Ten title game loss to Oregon

INDIANAPOLIS — Penn State head coach James Franklin met with reporters following his team’s 45-37 Big Ten title game loss to Oregon. He started with an opening statement.

“First thing is you’ve got to give Oregon and Coach Lanning credit,” Franklin said. “They did a really good job. Created some challenging situations for us on offense, defense and special teams. But I’m proud of our guys. We played the number one team in the country and had a chance to win the game at the end. 

Penn State-Oregon takeaways: Lions can’t overcome mistakes in tight Big Ten title game loss

“One of the things I talked to the guys in the locker room about is this is a new college football: You have to understand that this is new college football. And there’s a 12-team playoff, and our season has just begun.  And we’ll find out tomorrow whether it’s a home game in 16 inches of snow or whether it’s an away game on the road.  We’ll be excited about whatever opportunity comes and we’ll be prepared and ready because we have two losses this year, two top five teams. Had a chance to win both of those games. Learned a ton from it. Same thing tonight. 

“We won pretty much every major statistic besides that. But since the beginning of time, turnover ratio is significant, maybe the most important stat in all of college football.  We also won the second-most important stat in all of football which was explosive plays. But at the end of the day, we didn’t do enough to beat the No. 1 team in the country. 

“But I’m proud of our guys. We’re going to learn from it.  Going to flush it. We’re going to move forward.  We’re going to get better because of it. We will get better because of this. And we’ll be ready to play whoever they tell us we’re playing Sunday.  Proud of these two guys. They’ve been awesome. Dvon’s been awesome for all 11 years that I’ve had with him at Penn State. He’s been with me the entire time. I’m proud of him. And Drew’s been phenomenal, too. Great leaders for us and great players. 

“Again, give Oregon credit, but more importantly, I’m proud of everybody in that locker room and how we competed tonight.”

Read everything else Franklin said and watch video of his news conference below.

On the play of the Penn State defense and the Lions’ deciding to go for two after scoring a touchdown early in the fourth quarter

“First of all, again, we knew that was going to be a challenging team,” Franklin said. “Three wide receivers, a quarterback that’s played a ton of football and won a ton of games. So we knew it was going to be a challenging match-up.  And, again, I think early in the game we didn’t start out the way we’re capable of starting out and the penalties didn’t help. 

“I think we had a face mask penalty, a face mask penalty again, which those will happen. Then we had a personal foul and then unnecessary roughness. So that made it hard.  But they’ve got a challenging scheme. They’ve got really good players that — we knew going into the game, 15 was going to be a problem. Tez Johnson, had ton of a respect for him. He ended up having a heck of a game. 

“I thought our defense really came together there in the second half, gave us a chance there with a big stop to win the game at the end. But we weren’t able to get it done. The area that probably for both offense and defense, which I think was a critical point in the game, was the start of the second half. We’ve been great in the third quarter. We gave up points on defense, and we didn’t get any points on offense. That was a really important segment of the game that we didn’t capitalize. 

Then the two-point play, we spend a ton of time on the analytics. We were having a tough time stopping them.  We knew we were going to have to score points, and we wanted to try to win the game in regulation. 

“So going for two to give us the best chance to win in regulation, we thought was the plan that we needed to take and the approach that we needed to take. When you don’t pick it up, obviously that’s going to get criticized. I get it.”

“The next one, you could make the argument, you go for two again. But if you don’t go for two at that point, then you’re a two-possession game at the end. So going for one the next touchdown allowed us to put ourselves in a position, one more touchdown allows us to go for two, send it to overtime and go from there. But the strategy is about winning the game in regulation.  We felt like we needed to be aggressive. So that was the strategy we took.”

Does James Franklin think Penn State earned the right to host a first round College Football Playoff game?

“Yeah, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t spend a ton of time on that,” Franklin said. “We literally spent the entire week on Oregon. And for me to sit here and feel like I can understand or predict how those things are going to go when you got all those people in that room and all those personalities, I’m not sure. 

“I’m fairly confident that we’re going to be in the playoffs. I can speak on that. And I know these guys and myself and the rest of the guys in the locker room will be excited about the opportunity that comes. Do I think our resumé matches up with anybody in the country? Yeah, I think it does. Again, we lost by one possession to the No. 1 team in the country. And I think earlier in the season we lost to the No. 3 team in the country at the time, if I remember correctly. Is that correct?  And a one-possession game as well. 

“So I don’t think there’s anybody in the country that’s got that type of resumé in the Big Ten, arguably the best conference in all of college football. So, again, I’m not in that room. We don’t make those decisions. We’ll be waiting eagerly to find out who we play and then we’ll take all the necessary strategies and planning to put ourselves and our team in the best position to be successful. 

“And wherever the game is, we’re going to need our fans. If it’s a home game, which would be phenomenal, we’re going to need that place rocking like it’s never rocked before. And we’ll go from there.”

On what the Oregon offense did well

“Again, you’ve got to give them credit,” Franklin said. “They do a really good job of making it a space game. They got three wide receivers that are challenging — 15 is really challenging in space.  They’ve got a really good running back. And they’ve got a quarterback that is poised and confident, distributes the ball. 

“Then to Dvon’s point, they do a really good job of changing up tempo — going fast at times, then slowing down. Then look-look, see what we’re in defensively, look to the sideline, check the call, and then we’re trying to check the call. It was a chess game the entire time.  Again, give them credit. But some of the things they were doing to cause stress and their athleticism also created some of the mistakes and challenges that we made.”

Did Penn State considering going for it on 4th and 5 on its first drive of the third quarter before missing a field goal?

“Yeah, if it would have been fourth-and-3, everything that we discussed ahead of time we would have went for it,” Franklin said. “We talked about that on the headset in terms of sequencing, how to call it. 

“But when it was fourth-and-5, I thought the field goal was the right approach to come out with points. Barker had been kicking really well all year long. You make that field goal, you’re in a much different situation moving forward with a chance to win the game. But, again, when you don’t pick it up, I get it. I get the question. When you don’t make the field goal, then everybody says should have gone for it. I get it.”

On how Oregon defended star Penn State tight end Tyler Warren

“I thought they did a good job on third down, specifically of bracketing. It’s hard to do it on normal downs. But I thought they did a good job, like Drew said, he did a good job distributing the ball and it created opportunities for other guys.”

On his frequent conversations with the officiating crew

“There was a couple calls that we didn’t get that I thought we should have,” Franklin said. “One of the calls that I thought was a critical point in the game was the two-minute drive with a catch on the sideline to Omari, I thought was a catch. And looking on the Jumbotron, it looked like it was a catch. 

“I get you’re going to miss some calls, but it’s two minutes.  So everybody says, okay, well, slow down so they can review the drive. It’s a 2-minute drive; we can’t slow down.  In a critical game like that, in my opinion, they should have buzzed down and checked that.  We’ll watch the video of it. Maybe I’m wrong. But what I saw on the field and on the Jumbotron, that was a catch.  And you can’t miss those calls in these types of games, especially when you’ve got replay. Just buzz down. It’s too important. 

“So I thought we could have got a couple of those calls.  There was a time late in the game where I thought they needed to protect Drew where he was hung up in a pile and kind of got slammed down late. There was another time where you’re not supposed to pull people off the pile. 

“It is what it is, but the catch on the sideline, to me, that’s a critical moment in the game and it was close enough that it should have been buzzed down and at least reviewed. It is what it is. We’ll control the things that we can control.  And then obviously that’s not one of them. I was being asked if you want to challenge it. In a 2-minute drive, it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to stop and burn a timeout when you need those timeouts at the end of the game. To me, that should be managed by them.”

On the success Penn State had running the ball

“I would say, to your point, Oregon entered the game 22nd in the country in rush defense, giving up 112 games per game,” Franklin said. “And we rushed 292 yards today on them. Kaytron averaged 8.9 yards per carry and Nick Singleton averaged 10.5. Both went over 100 yards. Like Drew said, it’s a credit to the O line and tight ends and obviously those two young men. I also think it was the balance and our ability to both run and pass throughout the game. 

“And then you’ve got to give Coach Trautwein and Ty Howle, Ja’Juan Seider and Coach Kotelnicki a ton of credit as well. That’s a very well-coached team. And we found a way to manufacture yards and points.  Again, we just made it harder than it needed to be in the first quarter of the game. And it’s hard to do that against this type of opponent and expect to win.”

On the success Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel had

“Again, he’s a really good player,” Franklin said. “He’s started as many games as there is in college football. He’s been very, very successful. Very efficient. I was very impressed with him on film watching how poised and relaxed he is. He gets the ball out quick. He’s decisive. He’s got three receivers that can make plays and have made plays against pretty much everybody. 

“They got one of the better tight ends in college football as well. And they do a nice job. You’ve got to give them a ton of credit, which we have. And obviously there’s some things that I think we could have tightened up as well. 

“I think the other thing that factored in is we weren’t able to get as many sacks and tackles for loss in this game that we’re used to and get them off schedule. I’ll be interested to watch that film as well, and with Abdul Carter and Dani Dennis-Sutton we’ve been able to produce sacks and pressure, as well as Dvon and the boys inside. 

“And I could be wrong, but there wasn’t one holding call in the game. That will be interesting to watch. And I don’t want this to come off the wrong way: I give Oregon a ton of credit, but the penalties were pretty lopsided, and I have more of an issue with the ones that could have been reviewed. The nonreviewable ones, they’re going to happen. But the ones that need to be reviewed, need to be reviewed, in my opinion.”