UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State football players scattered throughout the state and beyond, some visiting with parents and grandparents and using the off week to get healthy and recharged for the road ahead.
Quarterback Christian Hackenberg went home to Virginia to regroup while cornerback Grant Haley visited with extended family in Pittsburgh. James Franklin spent an entire Saturday with his two daughters, but all of them couldn’t help but keep tabs on Michigan’s double-overtime win vs. Indiana. With the No. 14 Wolverines headed to Happy Valley for a noon kickoff Saturday, Penn State knows the task at hand will be difficult.
Franklin said earlier this season he doesn’t believe in the notion of signature wins, but the Lions close out the regular season with top-notch opponents in Michigan and No. 9 Michigan State. Penn State hasn’t beaten a ranked opponent in Franklin’s two seasons as head coach.
“We don’t make one win or one game out different than others,” Franklin said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “I know other people do. We want to be 1-0 this week. I know perception is a powerful thing because it’s that person’s reality of how they see situations and how they see things. We want to be 1-0 this week.”
Saturday is also senior day for Penn State, and several of the Lions’ 2016 verbal pledges are slated to attend the game as part of their official visit weekend.
Last go-around for No. 14?
Penn State will honor 19 seniors before the Michigan game, and, while junior quarterback Christian Hackenberg and redshirt junior defensive tackle Austin Johnson aren’t among that group, it could possibly be the final home game for the two standouts.
Hackenberg and Johnson are projected to land in the first few rounds of the NFL draft if they choose to declare after the conclusion of this season, something Hackenberg downplayed when asked Tuesday.
“Not really,” he said when asked if this possibly being his final home game crossed his mind. “I’m just focusing on it one week at a time, doing what I need to do to make sure I’m the most prepared I can. And then, right now, for these seniors to go out and play as well as I can and make sure that as a team we're really rolling and doing what we need to do. It's a great challenge that we have this week.”
Eliminating big plays
In Franklin’s five years with defensive coordinator Bob Shoop, the head coach said he hasn’t seen this before.
“If you look at a large percentage of our runs, we’ve played very good defense. But there’s been too many explosive runs,” Franklin said. “You’re going to get a run against you for 8 yards or 12 yards. You can’t have the runs for 35 and 45. Those kill you. They obviously swing field position, they swing momentum.”
Those chunk gains were problematic in the Lions’ loss to Northwestern before an off week, with Penn State giving up rushes of 35, 48 and 25 yards en route to getting gashed by the Wildcats for 227 rushing yards. Franklin said the staff used the previous seasons together at Vanderbilt to determine that the difference in the run defense is with the big plays, something that can be fixed with improved tackling and the players at the second and third level making sure their fits are correct.
Audrey Snyder: asnyder@post-gazette.com and Twitter @audsnyder4.
First Published: November 18, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
