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For a few hours at least, James Franklin was happy to soak in and enjoy the biggest win of his career.
Personally responding to 348 text messages afterward? Not so much.
“I basically text back, ‘Thank you,’ ‘Thanks, brother,’ ‘Appreciate it,’ and I copied and paste that to everybody,” the Penn State coach said of the aftermath of the Nittany Lions’ upset of Ohio State on Saturday.
“Men, women, coaches, neighbors, cousins, everybody. I stayed up, I got home at like 2:30 by the time I got out of the stadium.”
It was one of the last things to do at the end of one of the most emotional, eventful weeks of Franklin’s life.
His brother-in-law died. His basement flooded. He hosted dozens of recruits at his house for brunch. And his football program knocked off a top-two team for the first time since 1990, for the first time at home since 1982 and for the first time while being unranked since 1964.
“Never a dull moment,” Franklin said Wednesday at his weekly press conference, which was pushed back a day so that he could attend the family funeral.
Now, if it’s not too much to ask, he’d like to get back to something resembling a routine headed into this weekend’s trip to Purdue.
“We’ve moved on,” Franklin said. “We’re on to Purdue. Purdue, Purdue, Purdue, Purdue. And that’s our focus now.”
Franklin thanked his coaching staff for keeping things as normal as possible for the players while he was out of town.
“I think the routine is helpful. I think also having experienced coaches on your staff is really important,” Franklin said. “(The coordinators), and really all of our assistants, handled it really well. Handled it really well. And then I also pressure those guys calling me or texting me or emailing me. Kind of keeping me in the loop of what’s going on or any question that may have come up or things like that.
“I thought that was really important. I thought the coaches could handle this, but I didn’t want it to be a distraction to our players. So that was positive.”
Internal honors
Now that the national groups and the Big Ten have handed out their weekly awards, Franklin revealed who the coaches picked after beating the Buckeyes.
The entire offensive line shared honors on offense and linebacker Brandon Bell got the nod on defense after recording 18 tackles and a sack in his first game since Sept. 10.
The obvious choice on special teams would have been Marcus Allen and Grant Haley, who combined on the winning touchdown on a blocked field goal. But with those two all over TV, the coaches wanted to honor two different players — Von Walker and Ayron Monroe.
Overshadowed by the blocked field goal and Cam Brown’s blocked punt, Walker and Monroe played a huge role in stunting Ohio State’s return game.
Walker in particular made two impressive stops on kickoffs in the fourth quarter. The senior linebacker first brought down Parris Campbell at his own 13 after the Lions had cut the deficit to 21-17.
After the Lions went up 24-21 on Haley’s big runback, Walker tripped up Campbell once again, this time on the 11, to put the Bucks in a big hole for their final drive.
“Obviously looking back at it, Grant and Marcus had two huge plays in the game, and they were getting a lot of attention for that, which is good,” Franklin said. “But we also wanted to talk about those other guys doing all the dirty work.”
Infirmary report
Linebackers Bell and Jason Cabinda reported no lingering issues from their first games back on Saturday.
Cabinda (thumb) and Bell (knee) both said they felt good on Wednesday despite not playing since early September.
Franklin said that though the plan was for both to be eased back into action against the Buckeyes, they played well enough to handle relatively normal workloads.
“I swear, I was telling you guys the truth last week when I said they’re going to play 25 to 30 plays,” Franklin said. “But at the end of the game, I think Bell played 69 plays and he got hot. And (defensive coordinator Brent Pry) felt like it was the right thing to do to keep him in there. And obviously it was because he was very, very productive in the game.”
Both are on track for a normal week of practice. Tight end Mike Gesicki (ankle) missed most of the first half against Ohio State but was able to return later on. He is expected to play against the Boilermakers.
One question mark for Saturday would be wideout DeAndre Thompkins, who appeared to injure his shoulder on a hard landing against the Buckeyes and did not return.
