Penn State Football: James Franklin on the Nittany Lions’ penalties: “I’m embarrassed”

STATE UNIVERSITY | For all the sympathy Penn State received on Saturday, the players knew what was coming. Nittany Lions coach James Franklin had a few words for them about the ongoing penalty saga. They were prepared.

“He's very proud of that,” running back Nicholas Singleton said after Penn State's 56-0 win over Kent State. “The penalties are killing us. We don't need them. He lets us know that.”

Penn State committed seven more penalties totaling 65 yards against the Golden Flashes on Saturday, which dampened Franklin's mood after the win. The Nittany Lions set school records for total yards (718) and first downs (40) and earned their first defensive shutout of the season. But when asked about the penalties, Franklin's mood soured. And quickly.

“I'm completely bald now,” Franklin said. “I'm basically gray, so I don't have much left to lose. I guess I'm gaining weight, stress eating, and being embarrassed about the penalties. But I don't have much left, you know what else is going, right? Maybe gray eyebrows, that's probably the last thing that's going. But I'm not happy about it at all. So we're going to discuss it a lot as a team and work on fixing it.”

Penn State's seven penalties actually lowered the season average of 7.5 coming into the game, but that didn't appease Franklin. The Nittany Lions' 65 penalty yards were only two fewer than Kent State's on offense. Defensive errors in particular were a persistent source of frustration.

Penn State committed three more defensive offside penalties, bringing the total to nine through three games. Franklin was also caught on Big Ten Network cameras yelling “that's two penalties!” to a redshirt freshman offensive player who was penalized for holding and a personal foul in the space of four plays.

As Franklin noted, penalties haven't been a big problem for the Nittany Lions. They averaged 7.5 penalties per game, ranking 14th in the Big Ten. Two teams, Washington and Michigan State, averaged double digits. And in the grand scheme of things, penalties don't usually have as much impact on the final outcome as explosive plays and turnovers. Still, Franklin wants to limit them, especially the pre-snap penalties that cause so much anxiety.

“Yeah, I don't like her,” he said. “I don't like her at all, to be honest. You know, when you look at it,

The analytics and statistics don't really have a big impact on winning and losing. But as a head coach, I'm embarrassed by that because it shows a lack of discipline and it's sloppy and it makes things unnecessarily difficult. We make the attack more difficult.

“For us, on offense and defense, like everybody else across the country, we always want to be up front. If it's first-and-five because you were offside on defense, you're not going to get the sacks you want. You're not going to get the tackles for loss of yardage you want because they're up front and now they're running the ball, playing fast, playing naked and stuff like that. So I'm going to keep my composure, but I'm going to hold people accountable. I'm going to hold the personnel accountable for this. We're going to get this fixed.”

Next up for Penn State is Illinois, which has committed fewer penalties (21) in four games than Penn State has in three games (22).

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Penn State on SI is the go-to source for Penn State news, opinion and perspective on the SI.com network. Editor Mark Wogenrich has covered Penn State for more than 20 years, following three coaching teams, three Big Ten titles and a catalog of great stories. Follow him on X (or Twitter) @MarkWogenrich.