Four thoughts from the Lions' postgame media session

By Greg Pickel

The Penn State postgame media session was as joyful as you might expect following a 38-10 win over SMU in the first round of the College Football Playoff. It marked the Lions’ first-ever win in the previously four and now 12-team tournament, and also head coach James Franklin’s 100th as a Nittany Lion.

“You look at the stats that we focus on, the takeaway battle was big, three turnovers to one,” Franklin said. “Explosive play battle, we won that. Third down battle, we won that. We tied the sack battle. The penalty battle, we won. That’s a whole nother conversation. Then the middle eight, we won the middle eight.

“A ton of cool stuff. I can go on and on and on, but we got a team win led from our defense in the beginning of the game, but at the end of the game, it was a team win: Offense, defense, and special teams.”

Here’s what we learned from the leader of the Lions and others who spoke inside the Beaver Stadium media room.

Pick sixes steal the show

Penn State has two pick sixes in the same game for the first time since 1998 on Saturday. Both came from linebackers. Dominic DeLuca intercepted a pass from SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings and raced 23 yards to paydirt in the first quarter. Then, in the second quarter, Tony Rojas picked off the Mustang and raced 59 yards for a touchdown. The two plays accounted for the Lions’ first 14 points and set the tone for the remainder of the contest.

“We knew the quarterback scrambles a lot, and we couldn’t all proceed to the ball because he makes second plays out of nothing,” Rojas said. “Whenever’s he’s getting out of the pocket, that’s what he’s known for is making plays and passing downfield.

“I kind of knew that, how the running back ran, knew how to follow him, and I was in the right spot at the right time. Yeah, I felt like I was a running back. It felt good again, yeah.”

More: Penn State-SMU takeaways: Defense dominates as James Franklin wins his 100th game with the Lions

Added defensive coordinator Tom Allen:

“They’ve got a lot of talented players, especially in the skill positions. The quarterback is tough to deal with. It started up front, the coaches said it. We challenged our D-line the whole week leading up to it, our linebackers to stop the run, and then pressure the quarterback. He’s one of those guys, when you pressure him, you’ve got to be careful, what you get when you pressure him. It was about leveraging him and also leveraging him with layers.

“If you don’t have any layers, you’re going to make that first guy miss most of the time. So proud of our D-line, got a few sacks, but constant pressure. And the secondary had to be able to do disguise and get some different looks, play some man, play some zone. Then you do that with tempo, it can be challenging. Somebody’s got to get their cleats on the ground.”

Running away with it

SMU entered this contest allowing less than 100 yards per game on the ground and fewer then three yards per carry. Penn State starting running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen both averaged 6.4 yards per carry as the team overall ran for 180 yards and three touchdowns en route to victory. It marked the second consecutive game where the Lions found success on the ground against what is, at least on paper, one of the nation’s top rushing defenses. Offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki dialed up 40 rushes to 25 passes and ran nine straight times on its final scoring drive, which carried from the end of the third quarter into the start of the fourth.

“I think James probably had commented in here these games, this kind of weather, you need to win up front,” Kotelnicki said. “We need to have great O-line and D-line play. That’s how we’re going to continue to advance. I think we did a great job blocking it. It wasn’t always perfect, but as we started getting into the second quarter, and you can see those runs started to get a little bit bigger.

“We kind of talked at halftime, hey, listen, we’re going to go in the second half here, and we’re going to lean on them. If you’re running the ball well, gains of two and three in the first quarter turn into gains of four, five, and six in the second and they turn into gains of 10 to 12 in the third and fourth, and that’s kind of what happened. I was very pleased with that.”

Penn State focuses on the future

It goes without saying that Penn State will take the rest of Saturday evening to bask in the glory of the program’s first-ever College Football Playoff victory. Then, it will turn its attention to No. 3 Boise State. It meets the Broncos at 7:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 31 at the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix. Speaking with reporters after the game, all who took to the dais were not overly interested in reflecting on what this team has accomplished because they all know that more work remains to get to where they want to go.

“A lot of college coaches I saw this week talking about, this is a four-game season,” Franklin said. “It’s not. It’s a one-game season with an average of 65 plays on offense, 65 plays on defense, and 20 plays on special teams, and how you value those reps and how you prepare for those reps would give you an opportunity to play again. We’re in a one-game season, and we just extended our season one more game, 65 more plays.”

Added quarterback Drew Allar:

“In terms of Coach Franklin, he gets a lot of criticism that’s undeserved, and he’s done a lot more than people give him credit for. Obviously, winning his 100th game, it’s special to be a part of that and be the team that was able to deliver that 100th game win to him. To have it on a stage like the playoffs and at home in Beaver Stadium, it’s truly special.

“We don’t take these moments for granted, but at the end of the day, me personally, I don’t care what anybody said about me from the outside just because I saw a quote like why would you take criticism from somebody that you would never take advice from? That kind of sticks with me. There’s a lot of people out there that don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes, and it is what it is. It’s part of playing at a place like Penn State.”

He said it

Singleton on the Lions’ success on the ground both on Saturday and in recent weeks:

“I feel like me and Kaytron, we always say we the best backfield in the nation. We stand on it. Shout out to the O-line. They had a good job today doing what they doing. I feel like we just keep going with it. Keep practicing hard. Take one day at a time and find the little stuff we can get better at.”