Everything Penn State coach James Franklin said during his first spring news conference

STATE COLLEGE — Penn State kicked off spring practice on Monday. Before it, head coach James Franklin held his first news conference since February. He started with a shout-out to the Nittany Lions wrestling team, which just won its fourth straight NCAA title.

“First of all, just wanted to congratulate Cael and the wrestling program,” Franklin said. “Was fortunate last week to go watch a practice, and then this year we didn’t have a conflict. We’ve always had a conflict with spring ball. Also happened to be in Philly, so was able to go down and be a part of it, which was awesome.

“So obviously Cael and our wrestling program continue to do unbelievable things, so wanted to give them a shoutout.”

He then moved on to previewing spring ball.

“Getting into spring ball, just briefly, obviously we have some new and moving parts that we’re working through, so these 15 practices will be very, very important,” he said. “We had a really good winter workout period. I think the guys are in a really good place. Been very, very pleased how the staff has handled some of the adjustments. It’s been a grind, as you know. Just like on offense, the time we have to spend on defense get everybody on the same page, staff first, players second, has been good.

“There is still a ton of work that has to be done during spring ball and over to summer the training period before we open the season up against Nevada. So look forward to answering your questions and open up for questions.”

Read everything else Franklin said and watch video of it below.

How will the Lions replace Kobe King?

“Yeah, I think the Mike linebacker in a lot of ways is like the quarterback, you know, of the defense. You’ve heard this before obviously,” Franklin said. “Then also when there is a guy that’s been doing it for several years and a guy that has such a good feel in the box of defeating blocks, slipping blocks, anticipating runs, playing downhill, just a very, very productive player that really ran that position.

“So it’s going to be a heck of a competition. We got some guys like DeLuca and Rojas that have a ton of experience. Well, I wouldn’t say a ton of experience, but a lot of experience. And then some guys like Wylie who’s coming off an injury that we’re going to need to get evaluated. Got Ta’Mere Robinson that’s ready to take the next step. Speca is a young player that we’re expecting to take the next step as well. You got Arrington, you got Dee, Tatsch, who has been impressive since he showed up on campus, him and Arrington. Kari Jackson is a young guy ready to take the next step.

“So there is a number of guys, but right now not sure how it’s going to play out. One of the things that I think helps is we’re probably going go back — I think you guys know this — go back to my Vanderbilt days, and some years we been here a little bit more than others, but we will probably? Base more out of 4-2-5, which I think also helps with that. That doesn’t mean we still won’t go subpackage and go to a 4-3 when it makes sense, when it puts our defense and our team in the best position to be successful. But we were always a 4-2-5 coming to Penn State, and then you get to Penn State and you got really good linebackers and it’s LBU.

“Then some years didn’t necessarily make sense doing that. Obviously with some of our youth and lack of experience at linebacker, this is a way that I think fits our personnel this year, and also fits with what Jim has liked to do in the past. Obviously these were a lot of our conversations before him coming here.”

How will Penn State handle its veteran players this spring?

“Yeah, very similar to what we’ve always done in the past with our established guys,” Franklin said. “You guys a saw it with Olu Fashanu. Like with our established guys who have played a lot of football, we will modify their reps. That’s a fine line because they still need to get better. That’s why they came back. So we need to be smart about that.

“I also think it creates an opportunity for the guys that are behind them that are competing for more significant roles. It gives a better evaluation on those guys as well. For our established guys we talk about it as a staff. We go around, each position coach talks about his plan for each of his guys, make sure we’re on the same page how I see it as well as how they see it. Then we’ll implement that during spring ball. Did the same thing with Tyler Warren last year. So I would say there is probably about one, if not two guys like that at every position that will have some form of a modification this spring and really in training camp as well.”

How can Drew Allar take the next step?

“Yeah, so a couple things,” Franklin said. “I think No. 1, I get this question a lot about a lot of players on our offense and defense. A lot of times it’s not like one thing. I would say that’s the case with Drew. He needs to take another step this year, which we think he’s done every year he’s been here. He needs to take another step when it comes to his mobility. He needs to take another step when it comes to his leadership. He needs to take another step in it terms of his completion percentage. Needs to take another step in terms of his touchdown interception ratio.

“It’s really all of it. There are some things we’ve had some conversations with Danny O’Brien that those conversations will stay between us, but I would say just being transparent, I will say I don’t think it’s one necessarily specific thing. It’s all of it. The thing that’s exciting about Drew, and you guys see him, he may be 6’5”, 235 pounds but he has a lot of growth and development. He’s a young kid. He has taken significant steps every single year as you guys I think are aware. He puts in a ton of time and knows how to prepare the right way both mentally and physically. I think Danny does a really good job with him as well.

“I think the room challenges him as well. When you bring in to new pieces the two new wideouts, that puts him in a position to coach and get those guys ready.”

How are the receivers looking?

“Yeah, as you know, you guys have saw the competition winners and things like that that we post on social media,” Franklin said. “But, we don’t have footballs really involved. To really judge a wide receiver before you’ve seen them at practice and running routes and creating separation and one-on-ones and making contested catch es and catch percentage and radius and those things, it’s hard to say. It’s hard for me to say that.

“In term of their attitude, their work ethic, their demeanor, in terms of fit in our locker room, all those things have been really good. You know, in some ways I would say recruiting guys like Ross out of Troy and schools like that, a lot of times those are exciting because, no knock on any other school or place, but we just have a little bit more resources. So those guys have a chance to develop a little bit more than when you go get a guy from a similar type program. So it’s been interesting to watch those guys grow. They’ve been awesome.

“I know they’ve been a hit with their teammates in terms of kind of just how they’ve been in the locker room. So we’ll have a better idea, you guys will have a better idea after today. We’ll talk about that at the end of this press conference. We’ll talk about that in more detail. But we’ll all have a better idea after spring ball. So all those things. I wouldn’t say one specific area that I’m looking for him to grow in this.”

How healthy are Anthony Donkoh, Andrew Rappleyea, and Tony Rojas?

“Yeah, so I don’t want to speak in terms of the length of spring ball because I don’t know exactly how that will play out, but they will not be fully available in the beginning of spring ball,” Franklin said. “We’ll just see how that goes. Hard to say. Everybody kind of heals differently and at a different pace in how they attack and those things. Obviously our doctors and trainers have basic guidelines about how long certain injuries take to heal that they go by, but it’s hard to say.

“They’re not completely available to start spring ball. There are some things they’ll be able to do and some things they won’t.”

On transfer receivers Kyron Hudson and Devonte Ross

“Yeah, so Hudson, I’ll start with him,” Franklin said. “Like he’s just a guy comes from a great high school program. Played at a big time college program. Had success at this level already. But the other thing I will say about him is like oops whoever you talk to from his high school, whoever you talk to from his previous institution and on our current team, everybody just loves the guy. Tremendous work ethic. Obviously made some big time plays. Everybody saw the huge catch against LSU, the one-handed catch. So it’s done it at this level before. Obviously I think there is also an aspect when guys know it’s their last year, I think there is a motivation that comes with that as well.

“With Ross, very different scenario, different body type, different school he came from. I will tell you one of the things that really jumped out at us is I have a ton of respect for the University of Iowa’s football program and what Coach Ferentz has been able to do there, specifically on defense and special teams. And that young man, I think Troy was beating Iowa at the half at Iowa, which we know that’s a tough place to play. In that game I think he had two touchdowns on offense and one as a punt return on special teams.

“So for him to do it against that type of opponent on this stage gave you a lot of confidence that that could translate to us. So I think that game carried a lot of weight with us, again, specifically because we have so much respect for what they do on special teams and what they do on defense, and he had a ton of production in that game.”

Where will Penn State find a fifth defensive back in its base 4-2-5 defense?

“Yeah, again, I think — you know, we’ve talked about this before, whether it’s on offense or on defense, the value of being able to hire really experienced coordinators,” Franklin said. “If you look, our coordinators on offense, defense, and special teams, the amount of experience that our guys have: Knowles has been experienced for 17 years. Kotelnicki has been a coordinator — experienced for 19 years. Lustig, 20 years.

“I say that because where that experience comes is you’ve been doing it long enough that you know there is a lot of ways to be successful. I think early on as a player or coach you feel like it’s got to only be this way. I’m an 11 personnel guy. Well, my second tight end is better than my third wide receiver, but I’m an 11 personnel guy. Like those things don’t make a lot of sense.

“So where that experience helps is Jim’s been doing it long enough to understand we got to get our best 11 guys on the field. At Oklahoma State and other places that may have been three safeties. At Penn State that may be three corners. That may be three safeties. Back to the conversation we had earlier, if we had three killer linebackers we may play more true 4-3 base, whatever you want to call it, than maybe he’s played in the past.

“That’s a little bit of that process and why spring ball is important. It’s going to give Jim the ability to not only install some of the changes we’re making on defense, tweaks we’re making on defense, but also to evaluate our personnel to say, how are we going to play at our best?

“Obviously last year we really did it the same way, right? We started the season before we lost K.J. where we had three safeties on the field and I think we would’ve been very, very difficult to deal with if we would have had those guys all year long.

“So that’s going to be the process this spring, is saying, okay, where are those nickels going to come from? I would say our list right now is coming from both the corner and safety room. Again, just based on the argument how do we get our best 11 guys on the field and play to their strengths.”

Will the Blue-White game be modified?

 First thing I’m going to say is I’ve been at Penn State now long enough to understand the impact that Penn State football has other than this entire community. I think everybody is aware of that, right? There needs to be give and take with this. We need to work together. A successful Penn State football program helps everybody out. Bars, restaurants, hotels.

So for me to at any point sit here and say we’re not going to have a spring game, I don’t think that would make sense for a ton of reasons. The university schedules a ton of fundraising events around the spring game. A lot of people are in town. It’s like a homecoming for the spring type of deal.

So that’s going factor in always into our decision making process.

There are some things that we will not do. The game will not be televised for some of the reasons we discussed and you heard other coaches maybe talk about. And we will have a spring game probably more similar to what we’ve had in the past. At least right now as we go through these 15 days. That could change.

But I could see it being maybe a little bit shorter. One of the things I don’t think we’ll do is a halftime. There has been years where we’ll have 75,000 people out there. Halftime for 20 minutes and the parking lot becomes more attractive than the second half and the tailgateing. So we will probably condense it down, maybe a little bit shorter quarters, maybe no halftime.

But also I know we have some real, real football people in our fan base that want to watch and evaluate our roster, get excited, and have discussion at the barber shop, at the water jug discussing what Penn State football will look like next year.

I also think it’s valuable for you guys. So for all those reasons, we’ll still do it, but it’ll probably be a little bit less plays and probably be a little bit shorter amount of time.

It also probably won’t all be live. It’ll be a mixture of some live and some thud. But back to the question I got early on, when you’re trying to modify, we got so many players that decided to come back, there will be a lot of players that we’re going to modify from live reps.

But I wanted — I want it to be enough that you guys feel like it was worth it and our fans feel like, hey, I got a pretty good feel, idea of what Penn State football is going to look like.

I also think, again, back to that point, Jim being in the stadium for the first time and calling it from the booth and those things are important to get these reps and for him to evaluate our staff and for him to evaluate our roster. All 15 of those days are like gold.

On the Lions offensive line

It’s interesting, because you guys know this, but when I got here I think there was a kind of an NFL philosophy feeling with how to handle the sanctions and reduced numbers, and really took like an NFL model where we had five starters and a couple swing guys, and we barely had that.

I think for a lot of us, whether it’s your professor mine you get scarred by those experiences. This was pre-portal so couldn’t solve problems quickly. I’m a big believer that you got to develop and recruit up front on the O-line and D-line, and you really don’t ever want to come short in recruiting of those positions.

The other thing is a lot of times those positions take time. We talked about it. The closer you are to the ball it’s a man’s game in there. Age and strength and size is a major factor. So we worked very hard at building those numbers, and Traut has done a phenomenal job.

So, yeah, I think one of the things we talked about in the past is, okay, you’re short on the O-line. How do you schedule practice to make push the quarterback is still getting development or running back gets his development?

That would really be at any position. If you’re short at one position it can screw up the development on this side of the ball as well as across the ball. So making sure the guys get enough reps is really important.

We been a big two-spot team. Whether we’re practicing full speed two-spot or whether we’re doing the install periods in two spots, we will make sure everybody has a chance to learn and get reps. To me you learn best by doing, not watching. So we’ll do that as much as we can.

Then may be some periods where we say, okay, we’re not comfortable going live with the ones and twos, but we’ve got a bunch of threes and fours that we need to evaluate. Some of them are just young guys, so may go live with them and do some scrimmage periods with those guys.

Just see how it plays out. But being able to evaluate all those guys, being able to develop all those guys at every position is important.

To your point, whether you’re heavy or short at a position you got to make sure that it doesn’t stunt guys’ development. All those things factor in. That’s why we spend a ton of time on planning out the practices. I typically plan them out with Ben Kerr and Nelly, our sports scientist. Then get together with the coordinators, go through it with them, see if they have any recommendations or suggests. And then the whole staff.

As you know, we pretty much have all 15 set, but then we’ll tweak them as we go based on what happened the previous practice, what we need more of, what we need less of, those types of things. But we’re in a good position right now. I like the plan. I’m excited about what we’re going to do, how we’re going to approach it.

But it’s going to be an important spring ball for all the reasons I already mentioned, specifically on the defensive side of the ball.

On the upcoming House vs. NCAA settlement that will usher revenue sharing into college athletics

Yeah, I think this is the challenge, right? One of the things — it’s crazy. It’s like having the transfer portal open during the playoffs. Doesn’t make a whole lot sense, right.

It’s the same thing. We’re playing our season, having to make plans for NIL and the transfer portal like everybody in the country, and you had to have those deals done before the transfer portal closed because that affected people’s decisions.

But then also you didn’t completely know or understand all the rules of engagement and how it’s going to work out because it was still being worked through in court.

So this is a challenge all over the country. A lot of coaches are talking about this. A lot of ADs are talking about this. A lot of commissioners are talking about this.

It’s challenging. I think moving forward after you get through year one of revenue sharing, you know, you’ll have a structure that you used in previous years that went well and you want to build on it or some things you want to tweak and get better.

To your point, that’s why this is so challenging, is you’re having to make decisions and having to move forward really before you have all of the information and all of the guidelines. Decisions are still being made today, not only in the courts, but also with commissioners and AFCA, and all these things.

So very, very challenging. I think your question is a good one. Obviously not going to get into the specifics and the details, but that’s what’s made this so challenging, is it’s not like right when we decided we were going in this direction that all of rules were mapped out for everybody and the guidelines. They’re still changing as we speak.

So it’s been an interesting year for everybody.

How will the makeup of the Penn State offense change without Tyler Warren?

Yeah, good question. Again, that’s similar to what we talked about on the defensive side of the ball, is figuring those things out. To me, I look at it as an exciting time, and if I’m a wide receiver or a tight end, I’m excited, because Tyler Warren had how many catches last year?

Those catches have to go somewhere, right? If I’m wide receivers, I’m excited. If I’m tight ends, I’m excited. That production needs to go somewhere.

And I think that’s — we talked about this a little bit in the past. Like the interesting thing is the wide receivers need to understand they’re not just competing with the wide receivers. They’re competing with the running backs. Like who is going to get the touches.

They’re competing with the tight ends. Who going to get the touches. You know, the tight ends are doing the same thing. Competing with the other tight ends and also competing the other rooms, receiver room, running backs for touches.

At the end of the day of day we got to make sure we’re getting our best players the ball. I think the other thing that we’re going to have to do is make sure we have enough of those people. You know, obviously you got two proven commodities in the backfield behind the offensive line to your point.

Well, who is going to be guys that step up in the tight end room, step up in the wide receiver room. And that’s going to be very, very important for the development of our offense, development of our team, and for us to take another step this year.

It’s a fine line because Tyler Warren made it very obvious that he should get the ball. But I would also make the argument if you had a Tyler Warren and wide outs, then that’s going to be even more difficult to defend. And we had some really good wideouts who did some really good things.

But what I’m talking about is guys that everybody in the league are concerned about and scared of. That’s going to be important for our development. I think we’re going to have to do that through development of the wide receivers, through development of our scheme, through development of our quarterbacks.

Obviously a big part of that is going to come off our play-action pass, which should be a strength of ours that puts the defense in conflict. They’re concerned about our running game. So those things help, and they need to be complementary pieces.

The interesting thing is we’ve had years where K.J. Hamler was the guy we were going to get the ball and Jahan Dotson was going to be the guy and DaeSean Hamilton. These guys need to touch the ball a certain amount of times per game.

So we’ve had it in years past. We need that again. Whether that’s three wideouts or two or whatever it is, we need that with the tight ends.

Obviously we have a similar conversation at the tight end room. That room has produced pretty consistently. Still a big question mark when you lose a guy like Tyler Warren. That’s what spring ball is about, installing all these things we have in our offense and defense and try to have an idea by the end of spring what our identity could be and should be going into the fall, and making sure as coaches we are not forcing the identity that we want to have on our team and on our positions.