Everything Penn State head coach James Franklin had to say following loss to Michigan

Penn State dropped to 8-2 Saturday following a 24-15 loss to No. 3 Michigan at home. Just like against Ohio State, the Nittany Lions kept it to one-score game throughout the majority of the game, but when the offense needed to make plays in the third and fourth quarter, quarterback Drew Allar and the offense totaled just 47 yards in the second half leading up to Michigan’s final scoree.

So what did Penn State head coach James Franklin have to say about it after the game? Fans can read his complete postgame transcript here.

Opening Statement

Franklin: First of all, you’ve got to give Michigan credit, obviously a very, very good football team. We did not play well enough in all three phases to get to win in a great environment. Had a great crowd, great environment, which I think played a factor in the first half and helped us out. But after that, we’ve been really good in the third quarter all year long. Obviously, the turnover in the third quarter was a significant play in the game. Up to that point, you know, we were in a heck of a game and a heck of a dog fight between two of the best defenses in college football and two of the best teams in college football. So, give them credit.

Q: How do you keep the team motivated after you lose a couple of games like this to the biggest programs on your schedule? 

Franklin: Be honest. Be transparent with ourselves as staff and with the players. Address it head-on and then move on to the next opponent and get ready to get a win next week. We’ve lost to the number one and the number three teams in the country. That’s not good enough. We’ve got to find ways to win those games. But address it, be honest, be transparent. Go after it head-on and then move on to the next opponent so we can find a way to get a win next week and finish this thing in a positive direction.

Q: You all would have needed to recover that onside kick to go down and score to tie the game, or win, but going for two twice earlier in the game, now you’re down nine rather than seven. What went into making those decisions?

Franklin: We were down by four, so being able to go for two and get us in a position where a field goal gets us back into position to take the lead, or to tie the game. I felt like points were going to be at a premium. These are all the things that we talked about before the game and we used the analytics as well as conversations as a staff. At some point you’re going to have to score enough points to get back in the game or just try to get the game back into a one-possession game. We didn’t know how many opportunities we were going to get so we tried to maximize it.

Q: It seemed like Drew (Allar) missed open receivers today, he really struggled, even compared to the Ohio State game, how would you evaluate how he did today?

Franklin: We’ve got to do a better job of calling a game to allow our quarterback to get into rhythm. That is critical. We’ve got to find easy completions for a quarterback to get into rhythm. That’s what everybody does. We’ve got to do a good job of that. And then on top of that, although there weren’t sacks, there were too many pressures and there were too many times where we were not creating separation.

Q: How would you describe the offensive game plan going into this week and did you feel like you started to deviate from that?

Franklin: I thought early on it was to do everything we possibly could to stay on schedule and not be in third-and-long situations. I thought we did that for the most part. We still weren’t as efficient on third down as we need to be, that was the biggest issue. Although we were able to move the ball and do some things in the first half, we were not successful on third down, which was really to me the biggest issue. But the second half again, when we turn the ball over, and they are grinding and they had a hard time getting things going offensively as well, they went to their heavy package. Turning the ball over in that type of game, it’s going to be difficult. They’re going to do a great job at eating the clock and they did a good job of that in the second half. I think you could see they called the game where they put JJ (McCarthy) in position to make some plays with his feet because they were struggling to move the ball. We wanted to stay on schedule on offense. I thought we did that, but then we weren’t able to execute on third down.

Q: You mentioned calling a game to get the quarterback into rhythm. What was Michigan’s defense doing to make it kind of difficult to get Drew (Allar) into rhythm?

Franklin: The same thing they’ve done against everybody all year long. That’s one of the best defenses in college football. We’ve got one of the best defenses in college football. They make it challenging up front, their front seven is able to get pressure and to get sacks but not a whole lot against us today. But about their coverage, we made a couple of throws that if the ball’s not delivered right, one ended up being a pass interference on them and one we were fortunate that it wasn’t an interception. Your ball location is critical in these types of games. We had a couple of shots called but we were waiting for a specific look at a specific defense and weren’t able to do that, so we weren’t able to loosen them up from a coverage standpoint to help with the more consistent higher percentage throws.

Q: James, those two-point conversions, the first one, why chase points in the second quarter when you don’t know where the score is going to go? Why not make it a one-score game and keep your team alive with an extra point?

Franklin: Again, a very similar answer is we felt like points were going to be hard to come by. We were down by four. We wanted to get back to a field goal game. Those were all the numbers we worked through from an analytic standpoint as a staff, and everyone was comfortable that it was the right thing to do.

Q: You guys caught runners for nine yards and the first play and then did not touch the ball. The next few plays and it goes on. Why not go back to Kaytron to try the sequence?

Franklin: Actually, the one we threw the ball in there, that was a run based on the look you get. You have some outlets; you have some relief throws on the outside. Obviously, we want to continue that.