James Franklin explains Penn State game, time management decisions at end of first half in Maryland win
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Penn State led Maryland 7-6 when it fielded a Terrapins’ kickoff with 1:15 to play in the first half.
The Nittany Lions had two choices: Try to score, or just run out the clock and head to the break with a lead.
Head coach James Franklin and his staff seemingly, and perhaps surprisingly, decided to go with the latter option as the series began. The Penn State drive started with a five-yard run for running back John Lovett, which was the first sign that the Lions were not going to push the pace. Then, when Saturday’s visitors didn’t use one of their three remaining timeouts, the choice was clear.
Lovett rushed again for five yards and a first down, but a timeout still wasn’t used. A Sean Clifford incomplete pass came next, followed by back-to-back Lovett runs for six and seven yards, respectively. The latter seemed to signal the end of the second quarter, but quizzically, Franklin then called the first Penn State timeout with three seconds left.
Was a hail mary coming? That’s what most thought would happen. Instead, Penn State broke the huddle, took a knee, and jogged off to the locker room adjacent to its sideline.
Don’t feel bad if you, too, were questioning what exactly was going on. The game and time management didn’t make sense on a number of levels. What was the Penn State plan?
“Obviously, we weren’t playing great, and we were going to run the time off the clock,” Franklin said. “That was a discussion I had with [defensive coordinator] Brent [Pry] and [offensive coordinator] Mike [Yurcich]. Then, obviously, we got a couple plays and moved the ball a little bit, thought about taking a shot, so we called a timeout [and] had a discussion of what we wanted to do, and then decided that wasn’t the right thing, and then obviously kneeled it, and went into halftime, and made the adjustments, and the adjustments worked out well.
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“Again, I want to make sure that you guys have enough things to talk about, and argue about, and criticize during halftime. Without that what would you guys have done all halftime?”
Franklin’s end of that answer was somewhat tongue in cheek (watch his full news conference below). But, it was a completely reasonable situation to critique, considering few teams decide to go about the end-of-half situation as Penn State did.
“It’s not up to me, obviously,” quarterback Sean Clifford said. I thought we were going to roll a little bit, I thought we had some time. But, obviously, it’s not up to me. We just let Coach Franklin do what he does.”
The decision-making did not ultimately impact the outcome, as Penn State beat Maryland, 31-14.
Penn State returns to action next Saturday when Michigan visits Beaver Stadium. The kickoff time and television information have not yet been announced as of 9:45 p.m. ET Saturday night.
