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Blake Gillikin momentarily went off script Tuesday when he was asked how he would define a successful season for the 2018 Penn State Nittany Lions.
Instead of responding with the “1-0 mantra” that coach James Franklin preaches to his players each week, the Penn State punter turned to broader goals.
“Ultimately, our goal is to make it to a great bowl,” he said. “I’ll take 9-3 and a great bowl over 6-6 and a decent bowl. I think focusing on winning these last two games is going to be really helpful for us hopefully playing somewhere warm.”
Penn State (4-3 Big Ten, 7-3) is a four-touchdown favorite to beat Rutgers (0-7, 1-9) Saturday at Piscataway, N.J. (noon; TV-BTN; WEEU-AM/830).
With a win over the Scarlet Knights and a Senior Day victory over Maryland next weekend at Beaver Stadium, the Lions can strengthen their case to be invited to a third straight New Year’s Six bowl.
That could mean a trip to the Dec. 29 Peach Bowl in Atlanta or a return to the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., where they beat Washington 35-28 last year. Gillikin happens to be from Smyrna, Ga, so he would prefer the Peach.
“I haven’t played near home my whole college career,” he said. “That’d be pretty cool. At the end of the day, we have to focus on winning these last two games so that would be a possibility.”
Franklin, of course, deflected a question about what it would take for him to consider 2018 a successful season, but he did acknowledge that it’s within Penn State’s reach.
“It’s hard for me to say that right now because the season’s not over,” he said. “We’re focused on Rutgers. At the end of the season, when it’s all over and we played all our games, I think there’ll be a lot of things to be proud of and a lot of things that we can build on.”
The Lions lost to their three most significant Big Ten East rivals – Ohio State (9-1), Michigan State (6-4) and Michigan (9-1) – but they defeated Appalachian State (7-2), Pittsburgh (6-4), Iowa (6-4) and Wisconsin (6-4).
They’ve played the ninth-strongest schedule in the Football Bowl Subdivision, according to Jeff Sagarin of USA Today.
“We gotta be better, there’s no doubt about it, from a scheme and from an execution standpoint on offense, defense and special teams,” Franklin said. “But part of it, too, is we’ve played some of the better teams in the country over a (five-week) period.”
Penn State has had positive developments, such as the emergence of freshman wide receivers KJ Hamler and Jahan Dotson and freshman tight end Pat Freiermuth. They all started last week in the 22-10 win over Wisconsin.
“We’ve got a decent amount of youth there,” Franklin said. “You guys have heard us being excited about it. And then we’ve got some veterans who are working through some things.”
On defense, highly touted freshman linebacker Micah Parsons continues to impress. Even though he never played linebacker in high school and even though he has yet to start, he leads the Lions with 58 tackles.
“He’s not just relying on his athletic ability and his natural instincts, which he was doing early in the season,” Franklin said. “He’s using the techniques, fundamentals and keys that are allowing him really to take his game to the next level.”
Even though they struggled against Iowa and Michigan, the Lions are running the ball more effectively than last season. Miles Sanders topped 1,000 yards last week with two games left in the regular season.
The passing game hasn’t clicked, though, because Penn State has too many sacks and too many drops, Franklin said.
“We need to be protecting the quarterback more consistently, which we’re not doing well enough, and consistently catching the ball,” he said. “If we do those two things at a little bit better rate each week, our offense will explode.”
Contact Rich Scarcella: 610-371-5070 or [email protected].
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