MORGANTOWN, WV — Penn State coach James Franklin prides himself on preparation.
Most coaches do the same, but for Franklin it’s something he rarely, if ever takes lightly.
It’s why after the catastrophe that was Michigan State 2017 and the weather delay, he knew he needed to adjust his preparations to include potential weather delays such as that one.
Of course, on this day it wasn’t just the teams that were faced with overcoming Mother Nature’s wrath. So, too, were the fans who spent the 139-minute delay on the packed concourse not knowing many details of what was next to come or in their cars which saw many of the 62,084 fans leave and not return.
This time, Franklin, his staff and players were all prepared and came into the game knowing the threat of a weather day was not only possible but strong.
“After that situation we kind of put in all types of plans and policies to be aware of that and it also helped that before coming here, we knew this was a possibility,” Franklin said in his postgame presser.
In East Lansing, the lack of preparation forced the team to adjust on the fly and even sent the team police officer on a Chick fil A run.
“It’s hard to go to Chick fil A at closing time and ask him to stay open and come up with an order for a football team,” Franklin quipped. “That’s what happened in East Lansing, with Monica, our police officer going to do that for us.”
James Franklin on what he learned from the rain delay at Michigan State in 2017:
“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” pic.twitter.com/UaVoTq5jAH
— Seth Engle (@bigsengtweets) August 31, 2024
Fast food runs aside, the working space opposing teams face is far from ideal and that’s not just limited to team it also routinely involved visiting team media as well and Milan Puskar Stadium was no different than many of the stadiums the Nittany Lions were used to.
Awaiting James while being jammed in here like sardines pic.twitter.com/X3Krxetowd
— Jarrod Prugar (@jprugar26) August 31, 2024
“It’s still challenging when you’re the visiting team, because you’re stuck in a very small locker room. That’s not a critique on West Virginia. It’s like that everywhere, and they have all their facilities to be able to use,” Franklin said. “There’s some real challenges that come with that. I think you guys saw we created kind of out here in tunnels, some more space. I thought that was helpful as well and then we just had plenty of food, and again, because we knew that this was a possibility, we were able to get ahead of it from that standpoint so that was a positive and then obviously, having, having the iPads is also another huge advantage. You’re not just killing time, you’re actually watching tape, evaluating tape, grading tape, a lot of things that we could get done during that time.”
From the player’s perspective it created a multitude of different challenges that varied from player to player.
“Everyone was kind of over the place, as in, like there was availability outside, and then most of us, like I did, I was just in my locker, just listening to my headphones, waiting,” linebacker Tony Rojas said. “Then they’d tell us, every 30 minutes and we’d just be like, no.”
For Nicholas Singleton, he had to work on staying loose and making sure he stayed hydrated at the half.
“I was hot at first, but I was just relaxing, looking more film, stretching more just trying to stay off my feet, too.” Singleton said. “They told us just to keep hydrating. Usually people just sit down, do nothing, be on their phones and stuff so I try to stay active. I got on the pumps, did some stretching with coaches and all that.”
Whatever the recipe was for each player at the half certainly worked wonders for Penn State as opposed to their game against Michigan State, a 27-24 loss.
