Penn State coach James Franklin held his annual Media Day press conference at Beaver Stadium Saturday. The Q&A with a room packed full of reporters kicked off just after noon and lasted about 30 minutes. You can see the entire press conference above. In it, Franklin tackles a wide range of topics, including the return of linebacker Manny Bowen, Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback Trace McSorley, the offensive line and much, much more. He also has fun — and shows a different side of himself — talking about a summer paintball tournament the Nittany Lions had. Watch the video above. And here is the transcript from ASAP sports. COACH JAMES FRANKLIN: You know, really excited kind of about where we're at. This is the time of year where you know, you work all off-season from really the day spring ball ended to now to get prepared, and I like where we're at. I think we all know, we've got a lot of question marks this year, probably more than we've had the past two years and I think we have a very, very challenging schedule. But I'm excited. Walking out on the field the other day, we've got a good-looking team. You guys will get a chance to see it this afternoon. We've got a good-looking team. I walked on the field the other day and Tyler Bowen, who is a massive human being himself, is standing with the tight end group and there's six tight ends out there, and it's a good-looking six guys. We've got a good-looking football team. We're athletic. We're inexperienced but we're talented. I think we've got really strong leadership right now throughout our program but specifically with Trace and Nick and Blake for offense, defense and special teams so I'm really pleased with that. Before I kind of get into details, I want to thank Andy Mutnan and the training staff. This is by far the healthiest team we've had going into camp, and really the summer. We just had more players available to train and develop all summer, and I think you can see that. You know, same thing with camp right now. We've just got more guys that are full-go in camp than we've had since we've been here. So I think that's a real positive. I wand to thank Andy and his staff for all their hard work. And also Kayla Matrunick who is Kayla Martin, which is much easier to say. Congratulations, Kayla, on getting married this summer. But our nutrition program. I see a major difference in that. Our body fat's decreasing, and then just a lot of -- we did cherry juice after practice the other day and explained to the guys how important that is for not only hydration but more importantly, reduction of inflammation and other things like that. There's a lot of things right now that I walk into the building in the morning and I'm proud. You look at the facilities and the facilities, we're really starting to make some progress. We just moved into brand new meeting rooms and to watch our players walk into these meeting rooms and they are proud and they are really nice and they are first class, so it's exciting. You have signs like that in terms of physical signs of progress, but then also signs that maybe I notice as the head coach, like the injury report and how many guys were able to train all summer and the nutrition program. So it's just a lot of different areas. Carl Ohlson, who is working in the athletic department as a sports psychologist who has been awesome. He's actually been with us for a year, I think a little bit over a year in the athletic department. But I'm not the most trusting, with open arms and allowing people kind of inside of our program until I've gotten to know them and make sure they are a good fit. So he's been great with our staff. Came on our staff retreat this summer and sent me an e-mail, gave me feedback, and I love feedback. Gave me feedback both positive and some constructive criticism, which is always great, so you can grow. We are just in a good place. We are in a good place. We are young and inexperienced at some spots but we do have young talent that are competing, and some real depth. One of the most exciting things yesterday was at the end of practice, we always do some type of kicking competition, and we had four guys out there that, you know, just got on campus a couple weeks ago and made every single field goal and looked great and operation time was right. We all know D-tackle, linebacker, and kicker, our three biggest question marks, we have a lot of other question marks but they are probably the biggest question marks we have to get resolved. So instead of having four kickers out there and kicking the heck out of the ball and kicking it straight through the up rights is awesome. You'll probably see a sign on the field of the progress. You'll see the brands new turf, if you have not seen that yet outside. We haven't been able to use our turf to practice on a couple years, so we have regained a field, which is great. Also, strange to look at but is pretty cool, we never had goal posts on the furthest field from grass field. We have goal posts on there. You're like, why is he telling us this story. But one of the things that's cool is we put in arena league goal posts in there, and it looks crazy on the field. They are so tight, but we are using that for our kickers. So, you know, aim small, miss small. There are just some really good signs going on throughout the program, we are excited about what this season is going to bring. We talked to the players a lot about, really, we have to do a great job like we always have in meetings and practice because the NCAA cut down the amount of practices that we have before our first game, and everybody is under the same rules, but it's kind of changed some of the dynamics. I think you guys know in the past, in the past, we've always kind of had these deals from a morale standpoint where we have a practice and we cancelled the practice and we go bowling or we -- we go bowling or we go swimming. I think the one year we went swimming. It's hard to do that now because we cut the practices so far back that we don't really have that. The nice thing is that now on our day off during camp, we can do some entertainment which we weren't allowed to do before. I think there's a difference between canceling a practice and going bowling than entertaining them on a day off. The last thing I'll say, and we'll open it up to questions, had a great idea, which I thought on the front end was a great idea. We always go bowling and we always go swimming. So we said what could we do differently? We said that we would go paint ball, this great idea, great idea. We'll go paint balling. So broke the team up, A through whatever, as one team, and at the end, my team, my team, and when I said my team, the doors kicked open and all my coaches came running in and the administration staff and Kris and the calm oh on and eye black and going crazy. I realized that all the things that we have done, made these guys run, missing class and they were going to get us. So the rules were, when you got shot, you put the gun above your head and you run off the field, and no one's supposed to shoot you at that time. And I got shot in the first round, and I was on the far end of the field. And I put my gun up to run off the field and literally, the entire team just sprayed me (Laughter) and I'm not kidding. Kris will probably say, you shouldn't do this -- but you guys all see this? That's one. (Pointing to back of neck. (Standing, raising shirt, showing bruises). This is the best one, can you guys see that one? Yeah. (Laughter, ooohhss and aahhhhs from audience). Most of those shots came when I wasn't supposed to be getting hit, running across the field, the whole way across the field. Great idea on the front end. Not really good in terms of the execution of it. So you know, we're in a really, really good place but we've got a lot of work to do and we've got tremendous challenges this season, so open it up to questions. Q. When is the media coach's paint ballgame? COACH JAMES FRANKLIN: Are you sure? Are you sure? After that story, are you sure you want that? (Laughter). Q. I think there are some in the media that would really enjoy it. Okay. Secondly -- COACH JAMES FRANKLIN: Just so you know, that goes both ways (Laughter). Q. I'm sure it does. Secondly, what changed with Manny since December? Does the fact that you have a need at linebacker, did that facilitate the decision or affect the decision? COACH JAMES FRANKLIN: I know this is one of these questions that you guys are going to ask me, and however I answer it, I don't know if you're necessarily going to believe it. But you know, really, I don't want any decisions that we make be a need-based. I also don't want decisions that we make be an influence because of the perception of it. I want to do things because they are the right things to do. Does that make sense? So we created some stipulations for Manny to achieve from the time he left the program and if he lived up to his end of the program, then he would have an opportunity to earn his way back on the roster. You know, I think probably the biggest part of that is Manny graduates in December, and we felt like this plan was going to give him the best opportunity to graduate in December and leave this way and we didn't make it easy on him. You know, I was surprised when he said, "I'm going to try to grind this thing out." Because the easiest thing to do would have been just to transfer. We put a bunch of stipulations out and he did those stipulations. After that, I can't tell you what his role on the team is going to be like to be honest with you, I have no idea. But I do think the plan in place was the right thing to do for Manny and gives him the best opportunity in December for him to graduate from Penn State. Everything else is icing on the cake. Would I like to have him, from a football perspective? Yeah. But I have no idea how this whole thing was going to play out, but we do think it was the right thing to do to get him in the best position to graduate in December. Q. Everybody that's listed on your roster, are they all here, the roster we got this morning? Any other changes there we should be aware of? COACH JAMES FRANKLIN: I'm sorry. So you're asking me the roster we put out this morning, is it accurate? Q. Is everybody here, is what I'm asking. COACH JAMES FRANKLIN: Okay. I'm glad we clarified that. We are allowed to bring 110 guys into camp, so I think it used to be 105 and then they moved that number up to 110 or the Big Ten moved that up to 110. We never have everybody in camp because we typically carry about 120 players on our roster. So there's always some guys that aren't able to make it to comp based on -- that is based on need.<doc-sep>Penn State held its 2018 Media Day at Beaver Stadium Saturday, as head coach James Franklin, his assistants and most of the Nittany Lions were on hand to talk to reporters. As usual, we were there to deliver complete coverage of the event. And that included an appearance by ace photographer Harvey Levine. For Penn State fans wondering what Media Day is all about, well, Harvey has been covering these functions since the 1980s. So he has a keen eye for what the Nittany Nation might want to see. In this slideshow, Harvey takes you behind the scenes, into the Media Room and out onto the field to see much of what happened. Enjoy this detailed look at Penn State Media Day. And remember to stay tuned to Lions247 With Fight On State for complete Penn State team and recruiting coverage throughout training camp and on into the season.<doc-sep>
It didn’t take long for major news to break on Saturday when Penn State held it’s annual media day. In fact, before the press conference even started we were alerted to a couple of roster changes. The first and most notable was the return of senior linebacker Manny Bowen. who was previously removed from the team following multiple incidents where he violated team rules. Bowen returns to an ailing linebacker unit that is as young as it is thin. Heading the opposite way is Brailyn Franklin, who is no longer with the team for undisclosed reasons. With James Franklin’s opening statement, he addressed that this year’s team had more question marks than those prior, particularly on the defensive side. He praised Trace McSorley, Nick Scott and Blake Gilikin for their leadership as well as the nutritional staff, saying that this was the healthiest the team has ever been heading into the season. Linebacker, defensive tackle and kicker are what Franklin called the biggest questions marks heading into the season. He also noted that the kickers performed well on the first day of camp. A bit of laughter went up in the media room when Franklin revealed that he decided to take the team paintballing and immediately regretted it, showing the welts left on his body from being gunned down. Franklin briefly addressed the current situation at Ohio State, but seemed to steer around the question a bit. Both Franklin and defensive coordinator Brent Pry refused to comment on the role Bowen would play. They also both noted that walk-on linebacker Jan Johnson will compete for playing time at middle linebacker. After a question regarding new NCAA redshirt rules, Franklin said that the rules will have the biggest impact on players he deemed “yellow lights.” He stated that he wasn’t going to just play players in order to play them and that he felt the next step would be the NCAA expanding travel rosters. When discussing running back Miles Sanders, Franklin said that he was impressed by how the Pittsburgh native has taken on a leadership role. He also added that senior running back Jonathan Thomas told him that the running back group would produce just as much as it did a year ago, even without Saquon Barkley. To wrap up his portion of the presser, Franklin said that he felt recruiting on a national scale isn’t a must in order to compete for championships, but that the staff has to be versatile in how and where it recruits. New offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne said that he felt that McSorley’s attitude and the way he carries himself has remained constant from the time he arrived on campus to now. He also mentioned how both the tight ends and wide receiver groups have developed, particularly KJ Hamler, Mac Hippenhammer and Cameron Sullivan-Brown. As for the offensive line, Rahne said that the team has eight to 10 guys they feel comfortable playing and that offensive line coach Matt Limegrover has done a good job developing the younger players. Defensive coordinator Brent Pry heaped praise on Johnson and said that senior Jake Cooper is also in the thick of things at both MIKE and WILL. Pry also called freshman Micah Parsons an “interesting bird” who loves attention but also takes coaching very well and has an opportunity to contribute in 2018. Nick Scott, Garrett Taylor, Lamont Wade and Ayron Monroe will compete for the starting safety sports with Jonathan Sutherland also throwing his hat into the ring. Newly installed special teams coach Phil Galiano said he expects DeAndre Thompkins to continue to return punts, with Mark Allen, KJ Hamler and Mac Hippenhammer also capable. He mentioned Scott, Thomas, Tariq Castro-Fields and Jarvis Miller as guys he expects to play big time roles on special teams. Galiano also mentioned that while Gilikin is capable of handling both punting and kicking full time, the staff is hoping one of the kickers on the roster steps up and sets themselves apart.