Penn State, which was 0-5 coming in, notched a 27-17 victory over the Michigan Wolverines at The Big House. Needless to say, Nittany Lions' head coach James Franklin was pleased with his team for grabbing its first win of the season. He also understands just how hard it has been for PSU to come out on top at Michigan Stadium, where the program hadn't won since 2009 coming in.
"First of all, like always, I want to give Michigan a bunch of credit," Franklin said postgame. "I’ve got a lot of respect for this program, for this university — it’s got tremendous history and tradition. And that was a battle of two very, very respected programs in a very unique and challenging and weird year.
"This is our first win at Michigan since 2009. This has been a hard place for a lot of teams for a long time. 2009 — a long time."
PSU had turned the ball over 13 times through its first five games, but didn't give it away against a Wolverines defense that had only notched three takeaways entering the game.
"I think the biggest thing was obviously no turnovers," Franklin said. "That’s been the issue that we’ve been battling and working through all year long. Field position battle, I’m actually surprised we won that with the two kicks out of bounds on the kickoff. But we won that one as well."
U-M was torched on the ground — which has become a theme this season — with PSU rushing for 254 yards and three touchdowns on 50 carries (5.1 yards per rush). Even more impressive is the fact that the Nittany Lions were running players that were buried on the depth chart heading into the season, but due to injuries had to step in.
True freshman Keyvone Lee ran it 22 times for 134 yards and a score, while fellow freshman Caziah Holmes had 10 carries for 34 yards.
"That was our fourth and fifth running back, and I don’t mean that in a negative way," Franklin explained. "We have one of the most respected running back rooms in the country. And to be in this situation where we’ve got two true freshmen carrying the full load and to see them do it. [Holmes is] 230 pounds, he breaks tackles and he falls forward. And Keyvone did some nice things as well.
"For me to sit here and say that I saw that and knew that [they would perform at this level] — we thought they were both talented kids, but you don’t get a whole lot of reps when you’re fourth and fifth on the depth chart. And that’s without spring ball and a traditional training camp. It’s great to see and I’m proud of them, but we’ve got a lot of room for improvement."
U-M never led in the game, but the Wolverines did cut it within three points early in the fourth quarter. Franklin was proud of his group for responding with a touchdown on the next drive and closing out the game from there.
"To see that, to see that we were, I wouldn’t say in control, but were playing pretty good football and then the momentum started to shift where they started to close the gap on us — for us to battle back, stick together, overcome some penalties and some interesting calls, is the way I’ll describe it ... it was good to see us get a W and play complementary football."
PSU's defense performed admirably against an anemic U-M offense, only allowing the Wolverines to muster up 286 yards in the game and 126 yards in the second half. The unit also came up with timely stops, with U-M finishing 4-of-12 on third down and 1-of-3 on fourth down.
"We’re going to watch the tape, and there’s going to be a lot of things that we’ve got to get cleaned up and corrected, but we battled and we made plays when we needed to make plays," Franklin said. "It’s hard to stop people on fourth and inches, and we did that.
"We just played gutsy. That’s who we’ve been. There’s just so many examples today of who we’ve been for seven years now, I’d say. We just found ways to do it today. The earlier games, we didn’t do that. But we just made a play when we needed to make a play. And then even the strange penalty where we stopped them and they said batting the ball, there have been things that that would’ve put us in a rut and we would’ve had a hard time fighting through that, when it doesn’t feel fair.
"They stood in the corner and they took body blows and headshots, and they kept swinging. And I’m just really, really proud of the guys."
Penn State is set to take on Rutgers next weekend, while the Wolverines host Maryland.
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