What They Said After Penn State's Win Over Wisconsin

Penn State's James Franklin and Wisconsin's Luke Fickell praised Nittany Lions quarterback Beau Pribula's second-half performance.

Penn State quarterback Beau Pribula runs with the football during the fourth quarter against the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium. / Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Penn State quarterback Beau Pribula took Wisconsin by surprise Saturday night, but not his own head coach. James Franklin said he has "a ton of confidence" in Pribula after the quarterback, filling in for the injured Drew Allar, completed 11 of 13 second-half passes in the Nittany Lions' 28-13 win over the Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium.

Both coaches also called Penn State safety Jaylen Reed's interception return for a touchdown a pivot point of the Big Ten game. Now, the Nittany Lions (7-0) prepare to host Ohio State in a hugely anticipated game next week at Beaver Stadium. Before that, here's what Franklin and Fickell told reporters in Madison after the game.

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Penn State coach James Franklin

On the win: Just a gutsy win on the road against a team that’s really trending in a real positive direction. Tough environment to play in, just a gutsy win. You lose your starting quarterback, you lose your starting defensive end [Dani Dennis-Sutton], you lose your starting right tackle [Anthony Donkoh], next man up, no excuses. I thought it was a gutsy culture win from my perspective.

The other thing that stood out to me is an unselfish team and unselfish players. Here’s Beau Pribula, in a quarterback battle, waiting for his number to be called, and when his number’s called, is able to capitalize and take advantage of it. I did think the offensive coaches did a really good job of changing how we had to call the game once he went in to play to his strengths. And obviously Jaylen Reed's interception was a game changing, game-changing play. Just proud of our guys. I think sometimes we’re too close to it as coaches and fans, and I know we want all the wins to be pretty. That was one of the prettiest and ugliest wins we’ve had, but that’s the beauty.

On Drew Allar's injury: I’m not going to get into a whole lot of medical stuff now, especially when I don’t have a whole lot of information. [The decision] was, is he going to be mobile enough to give us a chance to run the offense the way we need to run the offense? It really came down to Drew. Once he came out, the [NBC reporter] asked me, and I told her Drew was going and Dani wasn’t. And then after we got out there and they got loosened up, Drew told me he couldn’t go, and then Dani wasn’t able to go [Dennis-Sutton played one second-half snap before leaving the game]. Turned out to be the opposite of what I told her. I asked [Drew] to be very, very honest with me. He just didn’t feel like he was going to be able to move well enough to go. Even at the end of the half there, you saw even throwing was challenging.

On Beau Pribula: I have a ton of condifence in Beau. He’s a character kid from a character family. Very talented. Some of his talents are different that what Drew’s are. So that’s one of the things that’s really important as a staff and as an offensive coordinator is, you’ve got to be committed to call the game differently. And that's easier said than done. We have enough diversity in our offensive scheme to play to [Pribula's] strengths. ... I reminded [coordinator Andy Kotelnicki], we’ve got to call the game now based on Beau’s strengths, and I though he did that. … I'm not surprised one bit that [Pribula] was able to manufacture yards and points for us when we needed it most.

On Allar's sideline presence: I think that’s the important thing. That goes back to the unselfishness: 'Drew, you’re a leader for us, and although you're not having the role you imagined having, we need you. How you carry yourself, how you conduct yourself, how you help Beau, all that is going to be critical. We’re not going to be able to do this without you.' That was something we discussed in the locker room even before going out [for the second half].

On Reed's interception: Momentum is a real thing. I think that was a big play in the game to swing the momentum. From that point on, we were really able to take control of the game specifically on offense and defense.

On Nicholas Singleton's one-handed touchdown catch: It's probably the area he's improved the most in his time at Penn State, is as a receiver. That was a one-handed catch, a tough catch and he's a matchup problem. People are going to play man coverage, and you've got him matching up on a linebacker, that's gonna be challenging. I think we can use him in that role even more and continue to expand on it, but that’s big for us and that's big for Nick and his development as well.

Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell

On the game: The whole idea was, get it to the fourth quarter and put ourselves in a position where we feel like we can excel and execute in the fourth, and that’s what didn’t happen. That’s difficult when your plan kind of falls into place, and those guys recognize it and then you’re not able to finish the plan and execute the plan. For several different reasons, we know that. But that’s where we've got to make sure we go back to what it is we do and continue to climb this mountain to get better. … Unfortunately we couldn’t take advantage of obviously an incredible atmosphere and crowd and things like that to finish the thing off and be able to execute when it counts the most.

On Wisconsin's 81-yard rushing performance: I don’t know. Obviously [it's] the penetration [from Penn State's defense]. Even the things where you run it and you only get 2 yards or 2-and-a-half yards on first down but too often we’re getting minus-1. Obviously we knew they were going to make it difficult, as aggressive as they are and as athletic as they are. Probably on first down, our ability to stay on track to give the offense and give [quarterback Braedyn Locke] a chance is probably where they did the best job.

On the pick-6: That’s one that probably hurts as much as anything. I can’t say it took the crowd out of the game or anything. It’s just one of those situations where it puts a little bit more pressure back on to the defense to understand that we’re going to have to make up some way, somehow for this. … We’ve been pretty good the past few weeks and poised enough to handle some of those situations, but that's one that is really difficult to overcome. That’s probably the thing we didn’t do the best.

On Penn State quarterback Beau Pribula: I don’t know that we knew going into half that that was going to be the case [Pribula replacing Allar]. In some ways, he’s the guys who plays 4-5, 6-8 snaps a game, sometimes just as a wide receiver or sometimes in there with two quarterbacks, so you had a little bit of preparation for him being in the ballgame. But give them credit. They did a really good job with him in the second half and caused us some issues. As much as they make you prepare for so many things, when he actually goes in the game, it becomes a little bit of a different game that caused us some issues. You give them credit for having a plan for when he is in there, and I don’t think we did a good enough job at making sure we understood what he was going to do. He also threw the football pretty darn well, too. He made some plays in the second half that were really, really big.

On punter Atticus Bertrams' first-down conversion: It wasn’t the plan. We did not do a good enough job at making sure we were prepared for that [Penn State's block attempt]. It’s one of those situations that obviously we talk about and are aware of with our punters in particular.  We should have blocked a helluva lot better. Then you put him in a situation where he has to make a play. He pulled the ball down to not get it blocked and then made a great decision and recognized that he could continue to run for a first down. That’s not something that was in the plan, but that’s a guy who’s improvising and making something happen.

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