Penn State football coach James Franklin expects ‘tightly contested’ game vs. Ohio State
After a season-opening overtime loss to Indiana last weekend, No. 18 Penn State will have to gather itself quickly to gear up and take on No. 3 Ohio State at Beaver Stadium on Saturday.
Against the Hoosiers, the Nittany Lions found a rhythm late and looked like the better team for the majority of the second half. But head coach James Franklin knows that it’ll take a more complete game from his group for the Nittany Lions to be able to defeat the Buckeyes for the first time since 2016.
“At the end of the day, to beat this type of opponent, it’s not just about a fast start,” Franklin told reporters on a Zoom conference call Tuesday afternoon. “It’s not about finishing strong. You’re gonna have to play well for four quarters — and that’s starting and that’s finishing, and that’s everything in between. To beat this type of team, it’s not gonna be pieces; it’s gonna be a whole.”
Ohio State is coming off of a 13-1 season in which it made its third College Football Playoff appearance in six years. The Buckeyes also beat the Nittany Lions last year, 28-17, in Columbus. Penn State never led in that 2019 matchup, and it fell behind 21-0 before scoring 17 unanswered points in the third quarter.
But, in recent years, there hasn’t been a team that’s consistently played Ohio State closer than Penn State has.
The Buckeyes have only outscored the Nittany Lions by 10 points combined in the teams’ past four meetings. After Penn State beat Ohio State by three points at home in 2016, the Nittany Lions lost by only a point in both 2017 and 2018. Overall, Ohio State has only lost six games the past four seasons — one of those has been to Penn State.
“We’ve found a way to beat them when very few people have,” Franklin said. “And we have played them to the wire. ... We’ve had opportunities to win some of those games right down to the wire. And one year, we were able to step up and get it done. And other years, they were able to. We’re going to continue to build on that, and we look forward to having a tightly contested game on Saturday.”
RUNNING BACK ROTATION
Franklin started off his weekly Zoom conference by announcing that sophomore running back Noah Cain is out for the remainder of the 2020 season.
Cain — the second-string running back filling in for redshirt junior Journey Brown, who could miss the season with an undisclosed medical condition — suffered a foot injury on Penn State’s first drive against Indiana on Saturday.
This leaves the Nittany Lions with three scholarship running backs on the roster: sophomore Devyn Ford and freshmen Keyvone Lee and Caziah Holmes. Ford led the way against the Hoosiers with 20 carries for 69 yards and a touchdown, while Lee and Holmes combined for 11 carries and 51 yards.
Franklin said the plan to fill the shoes of Brown and Cain will be a committee approach, and the rotation should look similar to what it was versus Indiana. That means Penn State will be forced to rely a fair amount on two true freshmen to carry some of the load.
“We came into the season with our running back room considered maybe one of the strongest (in the country),” Franklin said. “... So those guys are going to need to step up and be ready to play.”
But Franklin also added that Ford will be the feature back of the offense moving forward. And while he felt that Ford did some “really good things” in the Nittany Lions’ season-opener against the Hoosiers, Franklin said Ford will have to “grow into” being “the guy” for the Penn State running backs room to be successful.
NO WHITE OUT VERSUS BUCKEYES
Penn State will of course also not have its traditional Beaver Stadium home-field advantage this season with no fans permitted to attend games across the Big Ten.
This will be magnified on Saturday, when the Nittany Lions would’ve had their annual White-Out Game against the Buckeyes. An atmosphere considered one of the best in college football — created by more than 107,000 fans all wearing white — would’ve certainly helped Penn State’s chances against its toughest opponent of the season.
Franklin said although he’d love for the community, the fan base and his players to have a White Out, the program is “appreciative of the sacrifices and the compromises that were made to allow us to have a season.”
The seventh-year head coach also mentioned that the lack of a traditional White Out will have an impact on recruiting.
“Obviously, when we can get people on campus, for whether it’s a spring game or whether it’s a White Out game … that’s been a strong selling point here at Penn State for 100 years,” Franklin said. “It’s unique — it’s different than a lot of places. And it’s something you need to come and experience firsthand.”
