Ohio State put together a fourth quarter for the ages to cap off a win over Penn State last weekend, and James Franklin is making sure that his guys use the loss to learn something.
In his press conference yesterday, Franklin spent some time talking about how he's got a meeting set up for first and second year players to talk about lessons that can be learned from the loss to the Buckeyes. Whether they played significant snaps or not, Franklin noted that he wants to use the opportunity to make sure guys learn something they're able to apply two and three years from now to help make sure that it doesn't happen again.
Then Franklin shared something interesting. A lot of coaches talk about how they're only focused on the week's opponent and nothing else. The thought process is that games in the past can't be changed, and looking forward a week is a coaching sin, so the vast majority of programs believe in focusing fully on the team at hand.
However, Franklin explains how that can be a mistake, and ties it into why he's meeting with those younger players to talk about their loss last weekend.
"When you have programs that, 100% of their focus is just on the game that you're playing that week, that's where you see dips. That's where you see a program that has a really good year every four years because they build on it, but they're not developing those redshirt sophomores, those redshirt freshman, and then when their time comes, they're not ready because they're so invested in just that year.
"So it's a constant balance with the strength staff, and myself, and the assistants of you've got to spend a certain percentage - and your philosophy is going to determine the percentage that you spend - on the developmental aspect of your guys."
Franklin goes on to explain how they do things like kicking competitions with those younger guys throughout the year in front of the whole team to help in the development of their younger players.
Hear more from Franklin in the clip.
https://youtu.be/a_vRAt47fcI?t=611