What Kent State’s head coach said about Penn State ahead of matchup at Beaver Stadium
Kent State is traveling to Happy Valley this weekend to take on Penn State after losing to Tennessee 71-0 for the Golden Flashes’ third loss of the season.
Head coach Kenni Burns spoke about Penn State on Monday ahead of the matchup.
Here’s everything the former Minnesota assistant coach said about the Nittany Lions.
On Penn State as a whole
“Another very good football team, another top 10 football team in the country. We’ve got to go in there and just continue to get better as a football program and as an organization. And we will. Very familiar with their coaching staff. (Penn State head) coach (James) Franklin is a guy that, not only do I have a ton of respect for, (but I) have a relationship with, and a man that as a minority coach, you look up to with the success he’s had and what he’s done up to date. Then (Penn State defensive coordinator) Tom Allen was a guy who was the head coach of my alma mater. Been a friend for many years here and and then his nephew worked on our staff through that relationship with me and Tom before going to Penn State and there now. And there’s other guys on that staff that I’m just familiar with, and they do a great job. Very well coached football team, a team that’s consistently good, a team that’s consistently a top 10 football team and a team that will give us everything we can handle. And we’ve got to be on our point and again, make it about us and how we can get better as a football team as we get closer and closer to conference play.”
On game planning to play Penn State’s offense
“I think the game plan is just to really stop the run, like always, and then be able to not get beat deep. We want to limit the explosive plays. We obviously have to tackle way better than what we’re tackling right now. And they’ve got two really good running backs. I think that the quarterback’s a good player, but I think they start with the wanting to run the ball and getting the running backs going. Played against this team, played against these running backs, when I was at Minnesota, extremely talented and gifted guys. And we got to do a good job of making sure that we limit the explosive plays, tackle the ball when we can, swarm to the ball, get 11 hats to the ball, and do the best we can. We play some really good offenses, for sure. But again, as long as we’re learning from each game that we’re playing, it should help us in the future.”
On Penn State’s strengths
“It’s another top 10 football team. Like Tennessee, you’re not going to find very many weaknesses anywhere. I thought (Bowling Green) did a good job with some of the formational stuff to create confusion. But I think, like any good coaching staff, they’re going to make adjustments. They’re coming off the bye week. They’re going to know how to fix these things and grow. But they’re exceptional. They’re good on offense. They can throw the ball, they can run the ball. They’ve got a good front five. Defensively, Coach Allen is one of the best defensive minds in the game. I’ve always thought that before he even got to Penn State. When he was at Indiana, we were going against him, and I was at Minnesota. And if you look at their front seven on defense, they’ve got three D-linemen that have had a ton of experience, a mike linebacker that’s as good as anybody, who I recruited out of high school from Detroit. And then their back end is exceptional as well. So this is a complete football team. And to go against West Virginia in the first game and and win as convincing as they did, and to do what they did against BG, who I think is a really, really good football team — we’ll have our hands full. We’ve got to play clean. We’ve got to take it one play at a time. We’ve got to just get better and worry about ourselves and see if we can give ourselves a shot in the fourth quarter. But we will have a very uphill challenge again, facing another Top 10 team who is experienced as well.”
