Penn State football has one final tune-up contest before the competition ratchets up several notches with No. 4 Oregon coming to town at the end of the month. While the Nittany Lions will be heavy favorites against FCS opponent Villanova on Saturday, that doesn’t mean a win will necessarily come easy.
Speaking to the media for the final time before kickoff on Wednesday evening, James Franklin explained how the Wildcats’ multiple-front defense is designed to put his offense behind schedule in the running game.
“This is different than, like, odd [man front]. This is three-three stack. They are constantly moving, spiking, slanting, twisting, and it’s smart, right?” he told reporters. “Like, a lot of times, it’s hard to get defensive linemen [at the FCS level]. So you can go to this system and then just create chaos and get guys running free. That helps. The other thing it does is, if you don’t approach it the right way, it slows down the offensive line, because they’re worried about all the movement. So, then they’re tentative, so now they don’t come off the ball the way you want them to come off the ball.
“So, there’s a method to their madness, and it creates some challenges. But that’s also where we’ve been working odd front all the way from the summer. It’s harder when you don’t see it in practice every single day. That’s the challenge. But we didn’t wait till this week to start working on it. But it is challenging.”
Watch James Franklin’s full post-practice remarks from Wednesday evening here.
The Penn State rushing attack has been efficient through two games, with six touchdowns so far on the young season. However, only averaging 172 yards per game, the Nittany Lions have perhaps lacked the home run-hitting lethality that many fans expected with veteran stars Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen back for one final year.
Of course, Franklin and his staff don’t need to look back far to remember the issues caused by Villanova’s creative front. In 2021, the Wildcats held the Nittany Lions to a measly 80 yards on the ground as the Blue and White found themselves locked in a 14-point game heading into halftime.
After a sluggish start against FIU last weekend, Penn State is looking to produce a more polished performance this time around.
“It’s like facing the wishbone if you don’t see it all year long. And there’s some differences,” Franklin said. “There’s ways to get them out of the stack and into an odd front. So a lot of times, people will do that to try to calm it down a little bit. But they do a nice job, and they’ve been running this system for a while and have had success with it. So they’ve stayed with it and promoted from within. But it definitely causes some challenges. It caused us some challenges the last time we played.”
Penn State and Villanova will face off inside Beaver Stadium on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m.
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Matt is a co-owner and Editor of Basic Blues Nation. Launched in 2022, Basic Blues Nation is one of the fastest-growing websites covering all Penn State athletics. Matt is also a credentialed member of the Penn State football beat, and is a member of the Football Writers Association of America.
