Penn State Head Coach James Franklin has responded to Neal Brown regarding the late touchdown by the Nittany Lions on Saturday.
Morgantown, WV – Following a 38-15 loss to Penn State on Saturday night, WVU Head Coach Neal Brown was displeased with a late touchdown scored by the Nittany Lions.
Leading 31-15 with only seconds left, Penn State scored a touchdown to go up 38-15, and in result, covered the spread. Neal Brown, who is now 22-26 at WVU, responded by saying that running up the score “always comes back around.”
Today, during his weekly press conference, James Franklin, who was clearly holding back his true feelings, responded to Brown’s comments.
James Franklin’s full statement in response to WVU’s head coach Neil Brown saying Penn Stats ran the score up on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/2oJqLyC5gf
— Alex Rocco (@AlexRocco13_) September 5, 2023
Alex Rocco, a reporter for Penn State, shared Franklin’s quote via Twitter.
Here is what Franklin had to say:
“I guess everybody looks at it differently, right? I believe that my responsibility in those types of situations is to get my two’s in the game. But I think once those two’s get in the game, then they deserve the right and the chance to play and compete. That’s what I believe. I believe that from the opening kick to the last whistle, you compete and you play.
Now, if you leave your ones in, that’s a different story. Then you should change how you play, and you take knees and you run in situations that you normally wouldn”t run in. That’s different, but when your two’s go in the game, those guys get a limited amount of reps. They should have a chance to compete, and I believe that not just from a Penn State perspective. If we were ever in that situation, I see it the same way. This isn’t me looking at it just from all of you. I got a bunch of other things I could say, but l’m just going to leave it at that. That is my philosophy and our philosophy. I think when our two offense was in there against the majority of their ones, they have the chance to go compete, and I think Beau getting in there and being able to run the offense. They went to cover zero, which is hard to run when you go cover zero.
They should have the ability to check to our cover zero plan and have a chance to execute a play that has a chance to be successful against cover zero and then should have a chance to score. I am comfortable with that. I can’t do a whole lot more than that, and l’II leave it at that.”
Franklin firmly believes that his second string had the right to compete, and that the final score was nothing more than that. In his eyes, it was not running up the score, but rather his offense doing their job.
There will almost certainly be some hard feelings between the schools when Penn State visits Morgantown next August.
(Photo by WVU Athletics)
