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Penn State head coach James Franklin's Tuesday press conference

Headshot 5x7 reduced qualityby:Thomas Frank Carr•03/28/23•

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James Franklin Penn State Football On3
Penn State head coach James Franklin. (Photo: BWI)

Penn State head coach James Franklin met with the media on Tuesday evening for his weekly spring practice update. Check out his full comments on our YouTube channel, where he gives a report on several individual players, including Kalen King, Abdul Carter, and Vega Ionae.

Penn State young players still working through mental barriers

The consistent theme that Franklin has brought up when asked about his general assessment of how things have gone so far is that he wants more from his young players.

“Yeah, I’d like to see some of the young guys kind of take the next step. We’re halfway through right now, and a lot of them are still kind of hesitant and not as aggressive as they need to be. Defensively, I think we’re actually playing pretty well right now. That’s been good to see. But overall, we still got a ton of work to do before the spring game.”

Penn State is now roughly halfway through the allotted spring practice sessions for the year. Despite that, Franklin thinks they’ve done good work as a team so far.

“I do think we’ve done a good job of laying the foundation in terms of what we’re going to do in fall camp. But we still got a lot of work to do.”

Quarterback competition update

While Franklin hasn’t been tight-lipped about how the quarterbacks are faring, he hasn’t commented on how the competition is going. However, Franklin thinks his team will have to be prepared for a different fall than they were used to last season.

“I would say they have both gotten reps with the ones, which has been good. You know, they’re different styles of quarterbacks. I think that’s one of the things we’re going to have to do a good job with during the season. It’s not like we can just come up with one exact same game plan because they are different types of quarterbacks.”

But overall, getting the passing game up to speed with both a new crop of receivers and two new quarterbacks is paramount.

“Between now and West Virginia, we’ve got a ton of work still to do. I think just throwing in general; we can’t throw enough with our wide receivers and tight ends and running backs. In seven on seven, routes on air, we can’t throw enough.”

Penn State’s annual Blue-White spring game is scheduled for April 15. The on-field scrimmage is scheduled for 2 pm at Beaver Stadium.

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