STATE COLLEGE — After every Penn State football victory, James Franklin has a tradition. He finds a picture that best defines what happened on the field the previous Saturday, and he hangs it in his office.
Guess which one stood out from the win over Buffalo at rain-soaked Beaver Stadium.
Of course, the photo is one of the many of true freshman running back Saquon Barkley hurdling Buffalo safety Ryan Williamson on his way to a 17-yard gain that proved to be the highlight of both his breakthrough 115-yard rushing effort and Penn State’s 27-14 win over the Bulls.
Just before he arrived at the stadium’s media room for his weekly press conference Tuesday, Franklin escorted Barkley to his office so he could see the picture. The conversation they had on the way impressed Barkley’s coach almost as much as that leap did.
“He was just telling me the amount of people texting him, calling him, sending him messages.
“His response was, ‘It’s only one game. It’s only one game,’ ” Franklin said. “I think that’s one of the things that’s different for young guys: making sure you handle that the right way.”
Barkley is the talk of the program since that performance, with Franklin saying after the game that while junior Akeel Lynch still has a firm hold on the starting job, the coaching staff would have to continue to develop Barkley. That likely means his workload in Saturday night’s Big Ten opener against Rutgers isn’t exactly going to decrease after a 12-carry effort.
Franklin, though, said he doesn’t worry about counting on Barkley for more, even given his age.
“He’s a unique guy, he really is,” Franklin said. “From the day he got on campus, it was obvious. Everybody says they want to play as freshmen, but he approached it that way. He was constantly harassing (junior quarterback Christian Hackenberg) about watching film, throwing with him in the summer, all those types of things. He really approached it as, not only did he want to play, but he was going to make it happen.”
Injury report
For the first time this season, Franklin had relatively good news to offer on the injury front.
Cornerback Grant Haley, who missed the first two games of the season, is likely to be ready for the Rutgers clash Saturday, Franklin confirmed. He also added that linebacker Brandon Bell, who missed the Buffalo game after suffering an apparent ankle injury in the opening-game loss to Temple, is on track to join Haley in the lineup.
However, Franklin was much more reserved when asked about tackle Andrew Nelson, the sophomore who suffered a leg injury on the final play of the first half against Buffalo and did not return. Though he maintained he was “hopeful” all three could play, he did not sound as confident about Nelson as he did Haley and Bell.
“I can’t give you specific dates,” he said. “I don’t get into those things anyway. That’s really up to our training staff and our doctors to make those decisions.”
Hunting for punting
The Nittany Lions rank just 96th in the nation in net punting yards after Daniel Pasquariello struggled again to consistently help Penn State in the field position battle against the Bulls.
Franklin knows the punting situation needs to improve against Rutgers, which has one of the Big Ten’s best punt returners in Janarion Grant, the conference’s defending Special Teams Player of the Week. Grant scored two touchdowns — one on a 100-yard kick return and the second on a 55-yard punt return — in an 11-minute span of the fourth quarter in last week’s loss to Washington State. He piled up 337 all-purpose yards in the game.
“We want 40 yards. We want a 4.0 hang time. We want the location we’re looking for. We’re not getting that right now,” Franklin said of Pasquariello’s performance. “To me, you can probably live with two out of the three. You’d like all three. You’d like the distance, the hang time and you’d like the location. Right now we’re not getting the hang time or the location, which is really stressing our coverage units.”
Rivalry renewed?
Last season, Rutgers coach Kyle Flood tried — somewhat successfully, based on the intensity of the crowd that greeted Penn State in Piscataway, New Jersey — to ignite a rivalry with the Nittany Lions by referring to them solely as “the team from Pennsylvania.”
Flood, embroiled in his own stew of controversy these days, toned down the rivalry rhetoric this week, which is fine by Franklin.
Rivalries, he said, are much more organic phenomenon than they are borne of one intense year.
“Nobody comes up with it in a marketing meeting,” he said. “It’s something that happens over time between fans, schools, alumni.”