What did Penn State coach James Franklin say after the Lions' 20-12 loss to Ohio State?

Columbus, Ohio — Penn State head coach James Franklin spoke with reporters following a 20-12 setback at Ohio State on Saturday. He started his news conference with an opening statement.

“Give Ohio State ton of credit,” Franklin said. “I’m not sure. We’ll watch the tape. I’m not sure if we didn’t just watch two of the best teams in college football, obviously, specifically, on the defensive side of the ball. But you got to give credit. We went into this knowing that we needed to have an awareness of the effect and limit the impact that [Marvin Harrison Jr.,] in the game.

“We had a hard time doing that. Guy’s a heck of a player. Got to give a lot of credit. To me, really the story, the game came down to third down. We weren’t able to stay on the field on third down on offense, which which was the biggest difference in the game, in my opinion. So give Ohio State a ton of credit.”

The first question focused on why Penn State went for it on 4th and 4 at the PSU 43 with about eight minutes to play in a game the Lions trailed 13-6.

“If you punt, and they obviously want to run the game out, really, you have to be aggressive,” Franklin said. “You may not get the ball. You may not get the ball back, so you have to be aggressive in that situation. Obviously, when you don’t pick it up, it’s not the right decision.”

Here’s everything else Franklin said.

On if it is fair for people to judge James Franklin off his 1-9 record against Penn State

James Franklin: “I totally get it. That’s a good football team. You know, what I’ll talk about is today. We lost to a really good football team on the road. We had our chances, we battled, and we weren’t able to capitalize. Big picture things. I’ll be happy to talk about that at some point. Right now, I want to know about, we lost to a really good football team on the road. Didn’t make enough plays when we needed it. And I think it’s a fair question. I get the question. But, right now I’m worried about [this game].”

Was the passing game good enough to win at Ohio State?

JF: “We didn’t make enough plays today. We did not make enough plays in the passing game. We weren’t able to create separation. We weren’t able to create separation with enough time to allow those guys to separate. Combination of those two things.”

How does he evaluate the Penn State play calling on offense?

JF: “Yeah, I think we were at one possession game. So I feel like could have ran the ball open. But we’ll evaluate all those things on Sunday.”

On Drew Allar’s play

JF: “Yeah, I think all year long we’ve called the game and managed the game to put him in the best situation to be successful. And we weren’t able to do that today, for a number of reasons. But we’ll go look at it. We’ll see what the run/pass percentage is, especially when we take the two minute situations at the end of the game out of there and see what those numbers look like and what the efficiency was.”

What did Franklin think of the Penn State defense?

JF: “Our defense played extremely well. So did theirs We knew coming into this game, these are two of the better defenses in college football. They played their tails off, there’s no doubt about it.”

On the defensive holding call that negated Curtis Jacobs’ scoop and score

JF: “They called it defensive holding. Obviously, it’s a huge play in the game, huge momentum play the game. And then, I think after that followed up with another interference call. But, tthat was obviously significant. But for me to sit here and talk about how that call looked, I couldn’t tell you besides just what they told us.”

How can Penn State play better complimentary football moving forward?

JF: “Obviously, on third down, we’ve got to be better. And we’ve done a pretty good job of that all year long. We did not do a good job of that today. They played some zero hold [coverage] on us. And we got to be willing to throw it over their heads in those situations and take some shots and be aggressive. But you gotta give them credit too.”

Did the Lions consider switching to backup quarterback Beau Pribula?

JF: “Yeah, I think again, at this stage, it was a one possession game, we felt like we were in it. So, to make that type of change, I don’t if that’s the right thing to do for our locker room. I don’t know if that’s necessarily fair to Drew.”

On the trick play called for KeAndre Lambert-Smith to throw after the special teams fumble recovery

JF: “We tried to call a trick play to get a chance to get a huge momentum play. They covered it. It wasn’t there. When you call the trick play and it works, Iit’s a good call. When you call a trick play that doesn’t work and they got a covered, then obviously it’s good on their part.”

On the third down issues

JF: “I think a combination of too many third and longs, obvious passing downs, which obviously you want to stay out of and manage. But even when we did have some short yardage situations, they were playing cover zero. Felt like coming into this game, this was one of the better, short yardage defenses that we had seen on film. They had a good plan and they executed well.” Alright and then great.”

On issues Penn State is having with getting receiver separation

JF: “Obviously, again, when you look at today, and the combination of lack of success on third down and lack of explosive plays, we got to look at that hard. I think there’s some things that we can do in terms of how we’re calling the plays. And I think there’s some things that we need to do from a fundamental standpoint, there’s no doubt about it. But Drew needs some guys to make some plays for him on a more consistent basis. There’s no doubt about that.”

On if he got an explanation from Daequan Hardy about letting a punt bounce, giving up 25 yards of field position

JF: “Yeah, no, it was a big play in the gmae. I didn’t have the time to talk to him. Right after that play,obviously we’re going to offense. It’s also obviously not a time to kind of get into that conversation with him right after obviously he would have done something different.He didn’t need me to point that out.”