What They Said After the Penn State-UCLA Game

Penn State's James Franklin, UCLA's DeShaun Foster recap their Big Ten game at Beaver Stadium.

Penn State coach James Franklin walks on the field during a warmup prior to the game against the UCLA Bruins at Beaver Stadium. / Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

Penn State coach James Franklin said he expected running back Nicholas Singleton to play as of Saturday's warm-ups, while UCLA coach DeShaun Foster said he held out starting quarterback Ethan Garbers, in part, because of a "slick" field at Beaver Stadium.

Ultimately, neither played, as the No. 7 Nittany Lions defeated the Bruins 27-11 in a Big Ten football game. Afterward, the coaches discussed what went down. Here's what they said.

RELATED: The breakdown of Penn State's 27-11 win over UCLA.

Penn State coach James Franklin

On adjusting the offense without Singleton: Yeah, we thought we’d have him Thursday. I thought we’d have him Friday. I thought we’d have him today. I didn't find out until after warming up. [Running backs coach] Ja’Juan [Seider] and [trainer] Andy [Mutnam] came into the locker room and told me, so literally, it was a last-minute deal. Obviously, not having a guy like Nick Singleton is significant, but it was a tremendous opportunity for Kaytron [Allen] to get a few more touches. It was also a great opportunity to get Quinton [Martin Jr.] in there. So, you know, it's a really good opportunity for those two guys, and I think overall we handled it well.

On tight end Tyler Warren: I think that's the word. He's dependable. I mean, the guy does his job and does it on a consistent basis, whether it's blocking, whether it's running with the ball as a ball carrier,
whether it’s as a receiver. And again, I think you guys have heard me talk about this a lot, but when they can't put Tyler Warren into a category, that's what makes tight ends most valuable. You know, if he's just a receiver, they can treat him like a receiver. If he's just kind of a big run-blocking slug, then that's not a threat either. But when he can do either/or, that makes him very, very difficult to defend. And then, to your point, he's dependable when you throw the ball in his direction, he's going to catch it, he's going to break tackles. He's going to gain positive yards. So again, I think he's the best tight end in college football.

On UCLA quarterback Justyn Martin and his team's defense: I was impressed with him. I'm not sure how tall he is, but looking at him during pregame, he's a big guy. He seems very poised. The moment didn't seem too big for him. First-time starting quarterback and talking to their head coach before the game on, you know, on the catapult, he's running 21 miles an hour. So, he was talking about a big guy who can run, who was poised. So, I was impressed with every guy I really was. And I thought, when you're preparing all week and you don't have any film on the guy, that can make it a little bit interesting, but overall, our starting defense held a Big Ten opponent to three points. They scored a few more points there late with a lot of backups in. But in today's day and age, keeping people to a field goal is difficult to do. And I thought our defense did a nice job. There are some things obviously that need to get cleaned up. The big explosive play, we did not run with tailback in and man coverage, the guy that had him in man coverage, and that obviously is going to hurt you every single time that they find him. So that was a huge play the game. But besides that, I thought overall, we played well.

On Drew Allar's touchdown pass to Tyler Warren before halftime: I think we've done a pretty good job of that all year long. [scoring] points right before the half. We talked about the middle eight and things like that. That's been, I think, really good for us all year long. I think the other thing that I'm very proud of in terms of the players and coaches, we want to have all of our timeouts available at the end of the first half and at the end of the game. And there's value in that. There's power in that. So, I think the combination of two minutes and 40 seconds, or whatever it is in the game, with all three timeouts, that's a ton of time. It allowed us to start out not in a traditional two minute but have some urgency to us. And then after the two-minute warning, we were planning on going to two-minute offense right there. With it being a third down, we just used that as a time out. And then if we didn't pick it up, it also allowed us to burn some time off the clock and get the two-minute warning out of the equation for them if they were getting the ball back.

On Penn State's defense allowing no third-quarter points this season: I think really in my time, we've been pretty good in the second half in general. I think to me, I'm more interested in making sure that we're starting faster. You know, I think that first quarter, you look at the time of possession, and it’s not what you want. You look at third down on offense and on defense, not what you want. Again, back to the point I have had with you guys earlier about getting enough touches and getting enough plays on offense and getting off the field on defense. So, we have to start faster. But defensively, I think, you get a good feel for who they are, you get them settled down, you make some adjustments. And I think that's the biggest reason why we've been able to play really good third quarter football.
I think the technology has helped with that as well. But overall, getting our guys lined up, getting their cleats in the ground, getting them ready to play. I think we've done a nice job of that with both the offensive and defensive staff.

UCLA coach DeShaun Foster

On holding out quarterback Ethan Garbers: I think that if it wasn’t as slick as it was out there, the turf conditions were just a little bit better, he might have been able to go. But I did not want to put him in a bad situation, and the type of a competitor that Ethan was, he wanted to play. That was me that held him off.

On UCLA's performance: Defense came out and played well. We were not able to get as many points as we’d have liked, but I thought my defense played well, other than offensively we kept putting them out on the field, in situations that were not exactly ideal. But the way that my guys fight, how resilient they are, those are really good things to build off of. This team has rushed for what, 250 yards their last few games? And we held them to 85. That’s most definitely a positive. Offensively, we were able to run the ball a little bit better. It still wasn’t enough. We are going to continue harping on the positives.

On scoring a fourth-quarter touchdown: It was huge, just for the offense. You know, we stopped saying, ‘Let’s get some points, and let’s get in the paint.’ I just think it was big for their confidence, for the offense’s morale to just come out there and get a touchdown. Hopefully we can build off that and like I said, we’ve still got some more games. Any time you have more games, it’s a positive. We are going to learn from this and we are turn this around soon.

On Penn State's second-half defense: It was mostly that they brought more pressure. The front, I mean this is a really good defense. Any time that you get into passing situations and they know that it’s a passing situation, it’s going to be tough. They were able to pin the ears back and come a little more. They pressured us a little more, but we didn’t play exactly how we wanted to.

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