What James Franklin Had to Say About West Virginia

It’s game week between No. 8 Penn State and West Virginia, with coaches/players beginning to intensify their game-planning against each other.

Penn State head coach James Franklin had a press conference on Monday, where he discussed the Mountaineers and the upcoming matchup.

“Our focus now is directly on West Virginia and making sure that we’re in the best position to go win at a place that I got a ton of respect for. I think Neal Brown’s done a great job. I think it’s a very very challenging place to play. I think, you know, for opener that’s that’s going to create some challenges and issues for us. And a team that I think is feeling really, really good about themselves and has a ton of confidence, you know, they won nine games (last season). They really should have won 10 games,” Franklin said. “So they got a lot of positive momentum. The quarterback (Garrett Greene) played really well. So our focus is totally on that (matchup with West Virginia) right now.”

Last season, it was the Mountaineers who were on the road taking on Penn State in week one. The Nittany Lions came up with a 38-15 victory and would win their next five games after that.

“I think it’s magnified in a place that does not have an NFL team. Like everything in that state revolves around West Virginia (University) and Mountaineer football. I think they’re the seventh winningest program, I think I may have read that in their media guide. The seventh winningest program in college football, depending on what metric, how you look at that whether it’s total wins or percentage or whatever it may be. They’re a prideful place, I was looking kind of through their staff, like I think you know go all the way back to Don Nehlen right and what he was able to do. Then I notice there’s like six relatives of Don Nehlen’s working on their staff somewhere you know in the building. So there’s just there’s a ton of cool things about about West Virginia football,” Franklin said.

In front of what is expected to be a rowdy sellout crowd, No. 8 Penn State will look to walk into Morgantown unfazed and get the job done. While, West Virginia looks to play behind their fan’s energy and pull off the upset.