Greetings, guys and gals -
Penn State welcomed the media again Wednesday afternoon, the Nittany Lions practicing on this beautiful October day here in Happy Valley as they continue to prepare for their matchup with No. 3 Iowa this weekend in Iowa City.
The Blue White Illustrated team was on hand to check out the roughly 20 minutes or so of practice that was open to the media, with the team largely working through individual drills again with some light walk-throughs for the offense, defense, and special teams. I spent most of my time with the defense so I'll open this up for @Thomas Frank Carr and @David Eckert-BWI Staff to chime in if the spirit moves them.
1) We have to start here as we always do with a game of this magnitude, on the road, in an environment that always brings the juice, but the fight songs were *blasting* today. I don't know whether it was because I momentarily stood directly in front of one of the speakers during a time when it was off, only to have it come on abruptly, but I still can't quite hear correctly.
And, in fact, I'm not sure if head coach James Franklin can hear correctly anymore, either. Walking over to one of the sound guys following one of the rushed field goal simulations they do for an end of game situation, Franklin said he thought he heard a whistle blow during one of the recordings of the Iowa crowd noise. The guys said they would check it out, but then he also said that he just wasn't sure if he was hearing things or not because his ears were ringing from how loud it'd been.
2) Again, I'm repeating myself a little bit here but the coaches seemed to be getting into the guys just a little extra. And actually, stealing straight from Dave on this one, he said he heard Ja'Juan Seider tell his backs that if their stiff arms weren't... well, stiffer... Penn State might have no choice but to seek a tight end to fill that role on short-yardage situations.
3) Might just be me, I don't know. But, I've done a little asking around this week, particularly after his little 15-minute media session this afternoon and quarterback Sean Clifford is locked in. He was pretty short-winded on just about all of his answers today and in the few minutes I was able to watch him in practice, he was on-point.
4) Keaton Ellis worked with the second team at safety. Not necessarily that that is new, but this is more or less in line with where I'll expect him to be the rest of the season.
More from me after we get home from Franklin's post-practice press conference.
Penn State welcomed the media again Wednesday afternoon, the Nittany Lions practicing on this beautiful October day here in Happy Valley as they continue to prepare for their matchup with No. 3 Iowa this weekend in Iowa City.
The Blue White Illustrated team was on hand to check out the roughly 20 minutes or so of practice that was open to the media, with the team largely working through individual drills again with some light walk-throughs for the offense, defense, and special teams. I spent most of my time with the defense so I'll open this up for @Thomas Frank Carr and @David Eckert-BWI Staff to chime in if the spirit moves them.
1) We have to start here as we always do with a game of this magnitude, on the road, in an environment that always brings the juice, but the fight songs were *blasting* today. I don't know whether it was because I momentarily stood directly in front of one of the speakers during a time when it was off, only to have it come on abruptly, but I still can't quite hear correctly.
And, in fact, I'm not sure if head coach James Franklin can hear correctly anymore, either. Walking over to one of the sound guys following one of the rushed field goal simulations they do for an end of game situation, Franklin said he thought he heard a whistle blow during one of the recordings of the Iowa crowd noise. The guys said they would check it out, but then he also said that he just wasn't sure if he was hearing things or not because his ears were ringing from how loud it'd been.
2) Again, I'm repeating myself a little bit here but the coaches seemed to be getting into the guys just a little extra. And actually, stealing straight from Dave on this one, he said he heard Ja'Juan Seider tell his backs that if their stiff arms weren't... well, stiffer... Penn State might have no choice but to seek a tight end to fill that role on short-yardage situations.
3) Might just be me, I don't know. But, I've done a little asking around this week, particularly after his little 15-minute media session this afternoon and quarterback Sean Clifford is locked in. He was pretty short-winded on just about all of his answers today and in the few minutes I was able to watch him in practice, he was on-point.
4) Keaton Ellis worked with the second team at safety. Not necessarily that that is new, but this is more or less in line with where I'll expect him to be the rest of the season.
More from me after we get home from Franklin's post-practice press conference.
