Penn State Football Hoping to Rotate Into Perfect Lineup | James Franklin Takeaways

Penn State Football head coach James Franklin met with the media for his weekly press conference Monday afternoon.

As expected, talk was mainly positive about Penn State’s season-opening blowout victory over West Virginia and the lead up to the Nittany Lions‘ home opener against Bowling Green on Saturday.

Here are three takeaways from Franklin’s press conference:

Penn State’s Lineup is not set in stone

Although Franklin began his press conference noting that there were not any changes to the depth chart at this time, in answering questions later in the press conference Franklin noted that the lineup is not set in stone.

Specifically in an answer about the cornerbacks, Franklin noted that Penn State will play a “rotation” of up to six players, noting that who plays will be determined based on “weekly production and weekly practice habits.”

Franklin further noted “I’d be careful if I were you guys, not just at corner, but (everywhere) feeling like the guys who started week one will be the starters week two.”

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Plenty to still clean up

Despite a season-opening win by 22 points on the road, James Franklin stressed there are still plenty of things for Penn State to clean up and improve as the team moves on to week two.

Specifically, Franklin mentioned that Penn State has to clean up the drive start.

Franklin mentioned that all three phases of special teams, kickoff, punting, and kicking, need to be cleaned up to help force the opposing offense into worse starting field position. Franklin also noted that Penn State had too many penalties this week against West Virginia (eight for 60 yards), specifically noting too many pre-snap penalties.

On further opportunities for growth, Franklin noted the substitution error that Penn State had in the game and the need to burn too many timeouts in all three phases of the game.

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James Franklin is very high on Penn State’s 2024 defense

James Franklin went out of his way to note that Penn State’s defense played better in the 2024 matchup with West Virginia than it did in 2023, noting at the beginning of his press conference that Penn State’s defense played better in almost every statistical category this season against West Virginia than it did last year.

Franklin further noted that Penn State holds the longest streak in the country of not giving up a touchdown to start a game. Later in the press conference in answering a question on the defense against West Virginia, however, Franklin did temper expectations noting that the West Virginia game is a “small snapshot”, adding that Penn State must find things to work on and get better throughout the season.

Franklin ended the question noting that the defensive performance against WVU was a “really good starting point, foundation to build on” in 2024.

Penn State plays a Bowling Green team this week that Franklin noted is “bigger, more physical” than Penn State had anticipated before diving into the film. After the home opener this week, Penn State will have the first of two bye weeks of the season.

MORE: Handing Out Penn State’s Game Balls, MVP from Week 1 Win Over WVU

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