Penn State football: James Franklin highlights discipline, defense after primetime win

James Franklin and Penn State football kept their perfect record intact on Saturday night, taking down No. 19 Illinois 21-7 in front of an unofficial White Out crowd. On a weekend that had its share of surprising upsets and top teams pushed to the wire, the Nittany Lions lived to fight another day in Big Ten play.

For the fourth consecutive game, Penn State held its opponents to under 100 total yards in the third and fourth quarters. Illinois has 59 yards in the second half Saturday, largely due to five Nittany Lion sacks and -19 yards on the ground.

James Franklin discussed what led to the strong second half after the win.

“I think the first thing that we did a better job in this game [to help the defense] is we were better on first down,” he said. “That’s been an issue earlier in the year. We weren’t good enough on first down. So what happens then is, you’re getting third and manageable situations, and you’re able to extend drives.

“So we’re much better. Again, back to the 34 yards rushing. I’m not sure exactly what they averaged per rush, but it wasn’t very good, and that really set everything else up from there. We know that we’re going to get slants and RPO glances, which are similar to slants, because we play a heavy man coverage outside leverage. So we get a ton of that, and we gotta do a great job of getting our hands up and batting some of those balls down, and we gotta make sure we tackle it.

“But they’re going to make their plays too, they’re on scholarship as well. But ultimately, we made that team one dimensional. And when you’re able to do that, you got a chance to be successful. So, you know, the exciting thing, back to Rich’s point, and really a lot of you guys’ point, there’s a lot of things that I think are very easily corrected, correctable, and we got to get them fixed. And that’s coming from a defense that held them to how many total yards, 219, total yards and 34 rushing yards.”

© Chris Eutsler / Basic Blues Nation, 2024.

James Franklin doubles down on discipline of Penn State football 

Penn State football came into Saturday’s primetime matchup averaging 7.3 penalties for 67 yards per game. That troubling trend continued against Illinois, with the Nittany Lions called for six more penalties for 63 yards. 

After vowing to hold his program more accountable last week, James Franklin doubled down on Saturday night.

“Again, you guys have heard me say before, the ones I struggled with is, right now, we got a reputation for jumping offsides,” said Franklin. Five of the Nittany Lions’ six penalties were on defense, two of which were offsides. “And they [opponents] know it, and they’re going to keep doing it until we get cleaned up.

“So that’s got to happen. And the reality is, as good as we played, as good as we played, we made it a lot harder than it needs to be with silly penalties. And that’s all me, like this whole yelling at the kids, that’s on me and us as coaches. We got to provide more discipline all the time, not just punitive penalties when they jump offsides.

“Being more disciplined by how they are in meetings, how they sit up, how they take notes, all of that. And I believe the more discipline that we have off the field will transfer on the field. And that’s my job ultimately.”

You can watch James Franklin’s entire Illinois postgame press conference on the Basic Blues Nation YouTube Channel.

Penn State football now moves to 9-2 in Big Ten openers under James Franklin. The Nittany Lions will stay at home next week, welcoming conference newcomer UCLA to Happy Valley.

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