STATE COLLEGE — To James Franklin, it felt like an eternity worth of Tuesdays since he last sat at that desk in the Beaver Stadium media room, answering phone calls and fielding questions from the press gathered in front of him.
It had only been two weeks, mind you, but just because Penn State didn’t play last week doesn’t mean there wasn’t work to do. It doesn’t mean Franklin and his coaching staff wasn’t busy.
The Nittany Lions returned to their regular schedule Sunday, when they began preparing for Saturday’s key road game at Michigan. But last week remained a bit of a blur for Franklin — even if it did prove to be a relaxing weekend off for his players.
“Being able to get out on the road and recruit was really successful,” Franklin said of his bye week activities at Tuesday’s weekly teleconference. “All of our coaches were all over the place, flying around, running around, and we were able to get a lot of really good work done.”
Fact is, Franklin wound up having such a busy weekend that he needed to secure a helicopter to get him from place to place.
Thursday, he visited four high school football games in the Pittsburgh area to check in with some recruits, no small chore considering he gets so little time during the season to recruit that he feels the obligation to hit the road hard when he does get the chance.
“Unless we go back to a Star Trek transporter‑type deal, I don’t know how you’re able to get that done,” Franklin said. “The challenge comes if you’re in a certain area and you go see one kid and not another, there’s hurt feelings. The head coach can only be so many places, and the head coach carries a little bit more weight.”
Man-cave madness
Franklin was supposed to be in Philadelphia on a recruiting mission Saturday, but since the game he was set to see got postponed, he had the chance to go back to State College and spend some time with his family — and, as chance would have it, the Wolverines.
“My man cave was finished, so I sat down in the basement and watched a bunch of football games, mainly the Michigan game and flicked back and forth,” Franklin said. “My daughters came down and snuggled on the couch. They walked upstairs about six times and got something to drink and something to eat, and I just posted up in the basement, which was awesome.”
But what does a football coach look for when he’s watching the live broadcast of his team’s next opponent?
Clearly, that’s not the same as game film, and Franklin admitted he can’t rewind the same play a dozen times to look for different things like he and his staff do when they get the film.
That said, there is still plenty of information that can be gleaned by watching a game the way a fan does.
“You’re obviously looking a little bit at scheme and execution and things like that, but I’m studying a lot of things,” he said. “I’m studying body language. I’m studying the pace of the game and tempo, because a lot of times you can’t get that off of coaching film. ... A lot of times you can learn stuff from what the announcers are saying from interviews that they did before the game. So it’s really more of a big picture feel that you’re trying to kind of get about the game. It may be the stadium, how loud it is, and is the opposing offense having a hard time communicating and things like that.”
No magic wand
Franklin said he wishes he could magically make the offensive line’s woes go away.
He knows, though, improvement is not realistically going to come without hard work.
“You just have to keep working, and you just have to keep practicing,” Franklin said. “Our kids are committed to doing that and our coaches are committed to doing that. It’s no different than it’s been for the last 150 years. It’s footwork. It’s fundamentals, and there’s an aspect of it that’s experience.”
Franklin said he wants the offensive line to start showing some of the experience it is getting by playing. It needs to make proper calls, execute them and play faster — which means, to stop thinking so much.
Not so committed
Two players verbally committed to Penn State’s class of 2015 — quarterback Brandon Wimbush and defensive end Adam McLean — announced over the weekend they would be taking official visits to other schools.
Which, to Franklin, is fine. In fact, he said, he encourages it.
He just wishes they wouldn’t commit to a school until they’re sure they don’t want to do that any longer.
“I would rather guys not commit,” Franklin said. “When guys try to commit, I tell them no at first. I say, ‘Make sure you understand what you’re saying and what all these things mean,’ and I kind of go through it with them and everybody involved and make sure that they understand how we see it and if they are comfortable.
“Some people say, well, you know, they should be able to go on their visits. They can. Don’t commit. Keep going and visiting places and go seeing places until you’re very comfortable in making a choice, and then once you make that choice, you’ve given someone your word, you go from there, and we do the same thing.”
Just a few hours after making that statement, Wimbush — a four-star prospect — withdrew his commitment to Penn State and instead committed to Notre Dame, which he visited over the weekend.