STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Fans and players enjoyed final moments of spring practice, as the defense wins the annual Blue-White Spring Game 17-13. They were limited in what they could do because they only had so many offensive and defensive linemen available, but James Franklin says it still was a productive spring practice. He's glad they came out here and got some work in leading up to the season opener against Purdue.
"Like I mentioned, when you step into the stadium and you got 60,000 fans, I want to know which young players can handle that," Penn State Football Coach James Franklin said. "Some rise for the moment and play better than they did in the 14 other practices. Some are nervous."
"Everything went pretty good," Penn State sophomore wide receiver Malick Meiga added. "We saw a lot of young players getting reps, everybody getting reps and we love to see it. That's all it's about and I feel like most of it was good."
"It wasn't really difficult with the format, because that's pretty much how we format our practices besides the pre-practice stuff, trying to change that up, but it's pretty much what we've been doing all spring," Penn State sophomore linebacker Curtis Jacobs said. "That worked out for us because we had a lot of great defensive plays this game. I feel like we were aggressive as a defense and I like the way we played today."
"The reason why I came back is I wanted to be more of a leader," Penn State senior safety and former Lackawanna College Falcon Ji'Ayir Brown added. "I wanted to be that second guy, that player-coach that coach is looking for and the challenge for me this spring was how well can I lead? So I took that challenge and I feel like I did a great job."
"That's what I love about this team in general, too, not just Mitch (Mitchell Tinsley), the whole team," Penn State senior quarterback Sean Clifford said. "Everybody's ready to go. We just finished a long, three - what was it - month and a half spring ball and we are now already talking about the offseason. You don't see that every time."