James Franklin details Drew Allar progress, bye week plan, more: Notebook

Penn State’s plan is set. Meeting with the media Tuesday evening following the Nittany Lions’ practice, head coach James Franklin detailed what’s coming for the program. 

Correcting the Northwestern game during Sunday practice, Penn State had off Monday, returned to practice Tuesday, and will have another session with the full staff on Wednesday. Following the practice, though, the majority of the rest of the staff will hit the road recruiting while the three coordinators and four graduate assistants will operate Thursday’s practice. 

Once that’s in the books, the coordinators will also be on the road recruiting Thursday night into Friday and Saturday before returning for “somewhat of a normal Sunday.”

Aiming to get a head start on Michigan and the remaining seven games of the 2022 season, however, Penn State is working to maximize its time.

“In terms of our week, we’re spending most of our time game-planning and even trying to get ahead on a few opponents as well,” Franklin said.

Joining reporters for what will be his only appearance between the Northwestern post-game and his normal weekly Tuesday press conference resuming next week, Franklin tackled a host of other topics. 

Here are some of the other news, notes, and observations to emerge from Franklin’s post-practice press conference on Tuesday evening at Holuba Hall:

James Franklin’s post-practice scrum

Point blank offense

Coming off the lowest scoring output of the season, Franklin was asked about the identity of Penn State’s offense under Mike Yurcich. Describing more of a season-to-season reality for teams and the units within them, Franklin noted a key difference between the Nittany Lions this year as opposed to last.

“I do think this year, our identity revolves around being more balanced and having the ability to run or pass,” Franklin said. “I think that’s probably a big adjustment from last year and maybe even previous years, just being more balanced, having the ability to run or pass and keep people honest. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Through five games, Penn State has improved numbers in nearly every major statistical category on offense. That includes No. 41 for total offense (443.6 yards per game), No. 33 in rushing offense (192.6), No. 49 in team passing efficiency (146.5), and No. 44 in scoring offense (34.4 points per game). Only passing offense, now at No. 60 with 251.0 ypg is down from the 26th-ranked stat in 2021 (268.5 ypg).

Security team

Given Penn State’s struggles hanging onto the football, Franklin was naturally asked about how or if anything has changed with ball security this week.

With the benefit of a little more time having passed, Franklin pointed to the reality that ball security is stressed throughout practice, every practice, within the program. And, more importantly, there were lessons from which to learn coming out of the experience for Penn State’s running backs. 

“We work it every single day,” Franklin said. “There were things that we gotta continue to correct and emphasize that showed up in the game. Part of it was young backs’ first game in a wet game like that. 

“But. we just work ball security every single day. So after something like that happens, obviously you coach it a little bit harder and you hope the players do a better job with it. But, we didn’t change our structure a whole lot.”

Drew it up

Coming out of the week of heavy conversation about Drew Allar leading into the Northwestern game, Franklin was asked Tuesday about the true freshman quarterback and what he might glean from the program’s bye week.

Pointing to the heavy influence of sixth-year signal-caller Sean Clifford, Franklin said a message earlier this week applies both to Allar and the rest of the quarterbacks as well as the team as a whole.

“It’s like Sean mentioned the other day, it gives us an ability to go back,” Franklin said. “Let’s go back through the first five games and break it down, and take some time doing that. Not only his play when he got into the game but also Sean’s play. 

“What can you learn from Sean, what would he do differently? Go back and really do a whole self-scout study and reinforce the things again where typically, week to week, you don’t have time to do that. You make the corrections, you’re on to the next opponent. So that was Sean’s recommendation for him and the whole team.”

Kicking it around

Penn State’s kickoff carousel has been a point of displeasure for Franklin this season. Asked for something of an update, with Gabriel Nwosu and Jake Pinegar splitting the duties Saturday against Northwestern, Franklin noted that the current situation still isn’t his ideal.

“I think as I said before the season, I’d like to specialize if we could. Jake’s a more veteran guy. We know he can do it,” Franklin said. “I think if we could specialize, that would help. But, we haven’t been able to do that as of yet. So, we’ll continue to probably rotate Jake and Gabe. Gabe is closer in that battle, he has been a little bit more consistent. So we’ll see how that continues to play out.”