Notebook: Parsons making progress

Penn State head coach James Franklin met with the media Tuesday afternoon, two days removed from his Nittany Lions’ 22-10 win against Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon at Beaver Stadium.

Games still to play for the program this season include a trip to Rutgers this weekend, followed by a post-Thanksgiving Saturday date with Maryland to round out the Big Ten schedule, and a to be determined bowl destination.

Concentrating on the here and now, though, Franklin kept his attention on both his Nittany Lions’ win Saturday as well as the next game on the schedule against the Scarlet Knights.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the news, notes, and observations to emerge from Tuesday afternoon’s press conference, here:

1) To open up his weekly press conference, Franklin recaps the game prior right out of the gates, and this week was no different.

He did, however, deviate slightly this week in the depth with which he addressed not only his team’s performance against Wisconsin but also in some of the trends it represented overall this season.

Ticking off his team’s time of possession Saturday, a 33:59 to 26:01 advantage for his Nittany Lions against a team that boasts its ball possession stats, Franklin also ran through third-down success on both sides of the ball, defensive dominance, and turnover success.

Similarly, he lauded their success offensively in the red zone, going 3 for 3 Saturday, and their success through the course of the season in the category, scoring 33 touchdowns and five field goals in 40 total trips.

As we discussed here Sunday, Penn State still has work to do with drives that stall just outside the red zone, which Franklin acknowledged Tuesday.

Further, Franklin discussed at length some of the biggest improvements that the offense has made this season, and he brought the statistics with him to back it up.

“Going back and just kind of studying, doing some self-scouting studying, I have felt all year long that our running game has been improved this year,” he said. “The stats back it up. Last year we were averaging 4.9 yards per rush, which was I think is 32nd in the country. This year averaging 5.17, which is 24th in the country.

“I think the biggest difference there, and we've talked about this, is tackles for loss. There were too many times in the past where the ball would be handed off and they would have a free edge rusher, usually from the field, and we'd have tackles for loss. So last year, 11.36 percent of our plays were tackles for loss, which was 111th in the country. This year we're at 23rd in the country. So we've made a dramatic improvement there.”

Calling for further improvements in pass protection and catching the ball, Franklin still expressed optimism that the offense can “take the next step” if those two areas are corrected even with just three games remaining this season.

2) Speaking of catching the ball, the absence of Juwan Johnson continued Saturday, making back-to-back games in which he did not play following an early exit from the Indiana game three weeks ago.

Asked to update Johnson’s status and a potential return to availability, Franklin declined to speculate, but did say they’re trying to “get him healthy.”

“Juwan, obviously, is fighting through some things. Juwan's been through things like this kind of throughout his career and throughout his life. And our team has been awesome with him. Very talented guy. He's flashed some brilliance at times,” said Franklin. “But we've got to get him healthy. And once he's healthy he'll be able to go out there and contribute at a very high level and we need him.

“But like I've talked about all year long, got a tremendous faith in Juwan, got a lot of love for Juwan. But we've just got to get him 100% healthy so he can go out and be the type of player we know he can be. And when will that be, again, I'm not going to speculate.”

Similarly, Franklin was asked about the health status of Brandon Polk, who also did not play against the Badgers.

“It's hard to say the same because there are a hundred variables that go into it but similar,” said Franklin. “There are some similarities there, yes, sir.”

3) As Franklin touched on in some of his initial comments, he was asked to elaborate on the physicality of the Nittany Lion offense and whether it has achieved some of its preseason goals of reaching that type of personality.

While reiterating that they’ve improved running the ball, he returned to the two primary culprits that have inhibited further success for Penn State’s offense this season.

“I think the two areas that we need to be better at is protecting the quarterback more consistently, which we're not doing right now well enough. And consistently catching the ball,” he said. “If we do those two things at a little bit better rate each week, our offense will explode. And that's been kind of the theme all year long. We have run the ball better. We have not consistently thrown the ball better.

“When I say throw the ball better, I'm talking about all of it. Too many drops and too many sacks. So obviously that's been a big focus point for us.”

Having made some of those improvements Saturday against Wisconsin, Franklin again stressed complementary football and the impact of those improvements on every other facet of the game.

“We've also discussed in here and as a staff how that's affected our defense with play counts and things like that, being able to be more efficient on third down, helps our defense because it keeps them off the field. But also just like last week, it wasn't just our offense being better on third down, that dramatically changed the play count. It was our defense getting off the field, complementary football,” said Franklin. “We did a better job of that last week managing all those things, complementary football, winning the important stats, and although the score, even though it wasn't a dramatic score, when you watched the game, it felt like we were in control for most of the game because of those things that we just discussed.”

4) Now Penn State’s leading tackler for the season with 58 total stops, true freshman outside linebacker Micah Parsons is still waiting for his first career start.

Asked about Parsons’ progress toward that end, Franklin expressed that further evaluations will be made - as they have been each week this season - at the end of this week.

“He is now not just relying on his athletic ability and his natural instincts, which is what he was doing early in the season. He's now using the techniques and fundamentals and keys and things like that that are allowing him really to take his game to the next level, and also build that trust that his role continues to grow,” said Franklin. “I think you've seen that all season and specifically last week. And we'll just continue headed in that direction.

“This week is a new week and we'll make the decisions after Thursday's practice and Friday morning and what's going to be the best situation for us to be successful on Saturday. And there are so many factors that go into it. Kind of back to that point that we just got done talking about, about stats. It's more than just the stats. It's all of it.”

5) Though Penn State has had 15 of its combined 22 starters on offense and defense play each game without a hitch this season (a number that would be two higher were it not for a suspension to Kevin Givens to open the season and a forced absence for Garrett Taylor due to a targeting call at Indiana), Franklin alluded a few times to unspoken injuries that have impacted the team this season.

No more so was that clear than when he was asked about flip-flopped spots for Ryan Bates and Will Fries at left and right tackle Saturday, respectively.

Asked to evaluate the change, Franklin indicated that he would have liked to have seen better results, but would keep the option open for this weekend at Rutgers as well.

“This is one of these questions that you guys ask me that I'd love to just answer completely. But it's not the right thing to do for our program and from a competitive advantage against Rutgers,” he said. “But mainly based on a lot of information, we just felt like the best opportunity for both Ryan and Will to play their best football and give us the best opportunity to protect our quarterback consistently would be to move Will to left tackle and Ryan to right tackle.

“A lot of it stemmed about Bates making sure that he was comfortable with it and okay with it, but like always, Bates, there's another example of a guy that's just going to do what's best for our team. So probably did not pan out as well as we would have liked. But we'll obviously look at it again this week and see what we think is in our best interests moving forward.”