James Franklin recaps win, calls for ‘white-out energy’ against Illinois

(WHTM) — James Franklin had much to praise in his latest press conference after the Penn State Nittany Lions defeated the Kent State Golden Flashes, 56-0 last weekend.

Franklin first applauded the spirit and attendance of Penn State fans last weekend:

“I want to thank the fans, I thought that was impressive,” Franklin said. “You guys know how we approach it each week, that that was the Super Bowl for us, but sometimes certain opponents and certain fanbases won’t show up like that. We don’t have that problem here at Penn State; week in and week out, the fanbase shows up, and not only that, all types of discussions are out there about possible bad weather, thunder and lightning, this doesn’t happen. We don’t take it for granted, whatsoever. We got the best fans in America, and it is special. I know I’ve been here 11 years now, but I do not take it for granted, whatsoever. It is awesome, so I want to thank the fans.”

Franklin then recapped the numerous positives he gathered from the rout of the Golden Flashes, including clock management and third-down completions: “I love how we managed the clock at the end of the first half, we had all three timeouts available, we went down and scored, we burned the timeouts. They threw an incompletion on the first play and stopped the clock. We were able to use some time-outs to get the ball back, go down and score again. I thought that was significant. We were more efficient today on offense. we were still explosive. I think we’re 80% on third down, which was big.”

Franklin then put the spotlight on tight end Tyler Warren, who has made a significant impact for the Nittany Lions thus far:

“Ty Warren is the best tight end in college football. The tight end position isn’t supposed to be about receiving yards. It’s about complete players, blockers, receivers, rushers, throwing the ball, he threw a touchdown. I told him it was one of the ugliest touchdown passes I’ve ever seen, but it went for a touchdown, which was all that matters.”

Franklin also noted some penalty issues, as well as some reserve players who got to play due to the excellent play of the Nittany Lions’ starters:

“We still got to clean up some penalties, we had too many penalties, but overall, probably the most important thing is our veteran players played well enough to get a ton of guys in the locker room on the field who deserve to play. That’s going to be great film for us to teach off of, that’s going to be great film for us to learn from.”

Finally, Franklin had another message to Penn State fans amid the upcoming matchup with No. 19 Illinois: “The last thing I’ll say for the fans: we need this place rocking next week. I’m calling for ‘white-out energy.’ That could be all the headlines… ‘White-out energy next week.'”

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