Weekly Press Conference – Head Coach James Franklin (Northwestern)

Opening Statement: A couple things before I get into reviewing the last game.

Kind of a cool thing, my college coach, Mike Terwilliger, is about to coach in his 500th game at East Strasburg. He’s been a part of every game since 1974, either as a player or as a coach, pretty cool. Happy for him. Wanted to take a minute to recognize him. 

 

From Central Michigan, when we talk about the key stats that we talk about, first one is turnover battle. We won that. That’s been a consistent theme this year that we need to continue to do a good job on, plus-four. 

 

Penalties, we were able to get that one, plus-35 yards. Drive start battle, we got that one. Sack battle, we got that one. And then the explosive play battle, I talked to you guys after the game, it didn’t feel like that at times, but we did win that, both offense and defense, our goals achieved there. 

 

Players of the game, on offense, Kaytron Allen; on defense, Kalen King; on special teams,  Barney Amor. 

 

Then our D-squad players of the week, on offense Beau Pribula, Matt Detisch; on defense, Smith Vilbert and Mehki Flowers, and then on special teams, Cody Romano, and then the Big Ten Freshman of the Week was Kaytron Allen, which is cool. 

 

Some other general notes about the games. We were able to play 59 players in the game, which continues a trend that we’ve done really all year long, which has been really positive for us. 

 

National rankings, we’re ranked fourth in FBS and second in Power Five in turnover margin. We’re first in the country in PBUs at 41, and the next closest is 25. 

 

Areas for growth, we’ve got to eliminate the pre-snap penalties. We’ve got to get rid of them. Then continuing to emphasize special teams, attention to detail, kick locations, protection, those types of things. 

 

Then just the last few notes, some interesting notes that came up that we were able to find. Nick Singleton leads the country in yards per carry. Joey Porter, Kalen King, Johnny Dixon and Keaton Ellis all rank in the top 15 in PBUs in the country. 

 

We have nine different players who have recorded a sack, which ranks second among Power Five teams. 

 

Then Barney Amor has placed 50 percent of his punts inside the 10-yard line, which leads the country. Some positive things to build on. 

 

When you get to Northwestern, obviously it…