7/24/2021 football Edit

Watch: James Franklin poses as a reporter at Big Ten Media Days

Greg Pickel • Happy Valley Insider

Staff

Indianapolis -- Who said Penn State coach James Franklin doesn't have a playful side?

The eighth-year leader of the Nittany Lions is usually all about business when it comes to events like Big Ten Media Days, but he also never misses a chance to have some fun when the opportunity presents itself.

As veteran corner Tariq Castro-Fields sat at a table speaking to reporters just two down from where Franklin was scheduled to speak on Thursday, the chance arrived

Penn State Nittany Lions corner Tariq Castro-Fields answered questions from reporters, and his head coach, at Big Ten Media Days. BWI photo

Franklin lobbed a softball, and Castro-Fields crushed it out of the park.

The question?

"That amount of time, five years, what has that whole transformation that transition from, being from Maryland and coming to Penn State?"

Castro-Fields answer?

"It means the world and also I graduated in the spring, so that was the main thing. My mother saw me graduate, my grandma got to see me graduate, and coming to Penn State, I mean, it shaped me into the man I am today.

"Thanks to Coach Franklin, thanks to all the rest of the coaches, Coach T [Terry Smith]. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, and that's why I came back."

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Castro-Fields is a key part of the Nittany Lions' leadership group, and his decision to come back boosts a corners group that is among the team's strengths in 2021.

"Obviously we got some guys that we got to replace across the defensive front," Franklin said here. "I feel like we have the ability to do that with the way that we have recruited.

"We're as talented as I think as anybody in the country at the linebacker position and probably have the best secondary that we have had. So there's a lot of pieces there that we're excited about. Obviously we got to go out and do it."