What They Said After Penn State's Rout of West Virginia

"We played bad football," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said. Penn State's James Franklin was in a better mood.

Penn State head coach James Franklin speaks with West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Neal Brown after the game at Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium. / Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

Penn State coach James Franklin stood in a cramped meeting room late Saturday afternoon at West Virginia and sought to temper overreaction to his team's 34-12 victory. Meanwhile, Mountaineers coach Neal Brown accepted responsibility for a team that he said "played bad football."

Here's a sampling of what the coaches said in their post-game interviews.

Penn State coach James Franklin

On the game: First of all, give West Virginia and the Mountaineers a ton of credit. It was a great atmosphere. Obviously we had to deal with the weather, and I think that changed some things, but it was a great atmosphere. I thought they battled us very very tough, especially early on, but we were able to do some pretty good things as the game went on. ... I thought penalties early really affected us getting into a rhythm. The one time they clapped our cadence and we snapped the ball [leading to a fumble] that created challenges for us to get into a rhythm early on. Besides that, we did some really good things. It was great to see Trey [wide receiver Harrison Wallace III], a guy we’ve been talking about for awhile, have a big game and give you guys something to write about. Obviously, we want to try to get everybody involved in the run game, in the pass game and all those things, but overall, I thought we did some really good things.

We’re going to watch this tape. There’s going to be a ton of stuff that we didn’t like and that we need to get cleaned up, but we were able to come on the road in a very tough environment and get a win against a team that I think is really under-ranked. I think that is a good football team. I think they’re going to end up having a really good year. We’re appreciative to come out of here with a win."

On the weather delay: We put in all kinds of plans and policies [after a 2017 loss at Michigan State] to be aware of that. It also helped that before coming here, we knew that it [extreme weather] was a possibility, so it’s hard to go to Chick-Fil-A at closing time and ask them to stay open, and come up with an order for a football team. That’s what happened in East Lansing. So this was obviously a much better situation. It’s still challenging when you are the visiting team cause you’re stuck in a very small locker room.

That’s not a critique on West Virginia, it’s like that everywhere when they [the home team has] all of their facilities to be able to use. So there’s some real challenges that come with that. I think you guys saw what we created out here in the tunnel [with] some more space. I thought that was helpful as well, and then we just had plenty of food. We knew that this was a possibility, and we were able to get ahead of it from that standpoint.

On quarterback Drew Allar's run game: We call him Lamar Allar. I thought he ran better than people probably expected [from him] last year. He dropped 10 pounds [during the offseason]. I think he’s done a really good job in the weight room becoming more explosive. We always talk about mobility at the quarterback position [being] important, but if your quarterback can get you just two to three first downs a game with his legs, it changes everything. I thought that showed up today. [There are] some
things you have to clean up obviously, you know, in terms of third downs. I think we can be better in that area. Overall, I thought that was big.

Obviously, as you guys know, [redshirt sophomore quarterback] Beau [Pribula] is going to have a big part of the game plan. That was a big part of our thought, was starting with a two-point play. Getting him involved as early as possible in the game. Plus we had a play that we liked that obviously didn’t pan out that way, but Beau is going to be a big part of what we’re doing going forward, so we wanted to get him involved as early as possible.

West Virginia coach Neal Brown

On the game: First of all, I'll credit Penn State. [They’re a] good team. James does a really good job there. He’s done it for a long time, but we played bad football. I can sit here and talk for a long time, but that's the deal. You have three phases. You have offense, you have defense and you have special teams. Special teams is the only phase of the game today that we gave ourselves the chance to win. So to say I am disappointed in how we played would be an understatement. We played really poorly, and it was on a big stage.

We are very aware of that, and we played poorly. It starts with me. I am the head coach, and I am responsible for it. Then our staff, we didn't put our players in positions in some key times, especially in the first half I thought. Then our best players just didn't play very well, outside of, I would say, [linebacker] Josiah Trotter. Just watching the game and having a chance to watch it during halftime, I thought he played at a high level. [Safety] Anthony Wilson is much improved. Then after that, I don't think any of our players played at a level that is gonna be required to beat a team like that.

On the offense: It's just very erratic. I'll say this, I should've said this [first]. [Left tackle] Wyatt Milum, who didn’t play in the second half with cramps and some really bad stuff as far as that goes, now he played extremely well. I hope the pro personnel people watch this first half. He played extremely well. Now, he didn't get to play the second half and that hurts. First of all, let's talk about snaps. That's the fundamentals we talk about. The center and the quarterback exchange probably more than anybody. That was a disaster. We had a turnover on the second series.

We had a really good play that had a chance for a big play, and we snapped the ball at the wrong time. The very next play, we don’t field a snap again. It ends up being second-and-15 or something like that. We just did not play with the discipline that’s required. What I mean by that, is we only had one penalty in the game. That was a defensive offsides, but our alignments were not going like they should. On offense, we cut some routes short. We didn’t do a very good job with communication things. Again, we’re a better group, so my expectation for this group is extremely high, and we didn’t come close, and we didn’t come close to meeting those expectations today.

On whether the team was anxious: I don't know. If I knew, I would have prevented it. The worst thing about this is, when you see this coming, you can do something about it. Especially offensively, we have a better group. There should not have been this anxiety. There shouldn't have been this lack of execution, and there just was. We were anxious. We never got comfortable. We didn't execute. Listen, they have two defensive ends that aren't good players, they are great players. Especially rushing the passers. Number 11 [Penn State's Abdul Carter] is a great pass rusher. But with that being said, we didn't give ourselves a chance. They did not necessarily beat us, we did not give ourselves a chance. Again, it wasn't young players. It was people that have played a lot of football here. So, we gotta figure that out.

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