James Franklin Talks Rose Bowl Battle With USC

James Franklin met the media Friday to preview the upcoming Rose Bowl.

With the Rose Bowl coming up, Penn State head coach James Franklin and his team have been busily preparing for the matchup with the USC Trojans. Friday was Media Day in Happy Valley, and Franklin met with the press to talk about the upcoming game.

“Obviously the team is really excited about the opportunity and the Rose Bowl. We’re going to leave on the 26th. We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and the game to get prepared,” Franklin said.

Franklin outlined the way his team is preparing for the game. The first few practices are general and focus on development and getting young guys some rep. Then, the team will switch it’s focus to preparing for USC during the week leading up to the contest.

Highlights of what Franklin said Friday can be found below. The full transcript can be found on GoPSUSports.com.

On Not Making the CFP:

” I think it’s fair and obvious to say that our guys and myself and everybody would love to have been part of the four. But again, we didn’t make the playoffs, and we’re going to be going to the Rose Bowl.”

On Guys Who Are Officially Out:

“Some of these you guys were aware of, some you’re not: Brendan Mahon, Paris Palmer, Andrew Nelson, Chance Sorrell, Jan Johnson, Nyeem Wartman-White, Jason Vranic, Jake Cooper, Von Walker, Brandon Polk, and Nick Bowers. So we don’t talk about a lot of those things during the season, as you guys know, because I want people to have to prepare for the possibility of those guys coming back at some point not knowing when that’s going to happen, but those guys all had season-ending injuries.

On Second-Half Adjustments:

“I think our coaches do a great job at halftime making adjustments, getting our guys calmed down. I think I’ve mentioned this to you guys before. I think although it’s late in the season, you don’t really talk about being a young team anymore. I do think there were times where our guys would get a little frazzled in the first quarter and we would need to get them settled down, especially like on the offensive line where we were playing a bunch of young guys late in the season, and getting those guys into halftime and getting them calmed down and no different than Little League and Pop Warner getting them some orange slices and allowing them to go to the bathroom and being able to sit down and talk to them and not having to sprint right back on the field, we were able to get those things covered.”

On Assistant Coaches Being Sought After:

“You know, you talk about our assistant coaches. I think that’s a compliment. I think whenever you have assistant coaches being approached and people trying to hire your staff, that means that you’re doing something right, and they want to kind of get a piece of it. I think we’ve had three coaches approached, three separate coaches approached for multiple head coaching jobs. I’m hoping that we’re going to be able to keep the staff together as long as we possibly can, but they’re talented guys and guys who are going to leave at some point for head coaching opportunities. We want that for them, but we want to try to keep the staff together as long as we possibly can.”

On the Play of USC:

“Yeah. As you guys know, this is a really, really talented team. I think the change that they made, the change that they made at the quarterback position really kind of changed their whole season, playing with a lot of confidence right now. They are big. They are athletic, and they are very, very skilled.”