Penn State coach James Franklin responds to fake injury accusations

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State coach James Franklin responded to comments by his Iowa counterpart, Kirk Ferentz, who defended Iowa fans booing injured Nittany Lions during last week’s game.

And Franklin didn’t hold back in a more than five-minute rant that addressed strategy and a scene that he said “isn’t right for college football.”

Throughout the game, PJ Mustipher, Sean Clifford, Jonathan Sutherland, Jaquan Brisker, Arnold Ebiketie and Dvon Ellies went down with an assortment of injuries. When players went down, Iowa fans booed in response. The majority of the injuries were to defensive players, as Penn State lost to No. 2 Iowa, 23-20, in Iowa City.

“We don’t coach it, haven’t really been exposed to it,” Ferentz said via ESPN on Tuesday. “But our fans thought they smelled a rat, I guess, I don’t know, so they responded the way they responded.”

The idea for a team to fake injuries is to slow a speedy offense. Iowa averages 70.7 plays per game, which is ranked 63rd among Football Bowl Subdivision schools, according to Team Rankings. By contrast, North Texas averages the most plays per game in the country with 86.2 per game. Franklin fired back during his media availability on Wednesday.

“So how does this strategy make sense, against a huddle?” Franklin said. “People use this strategy to slow people down. Spread offenses, tempo offenses — they huddle. So that strategy did not make sense in this situation. In our six years of playing them — six years straight, four and two with our record — has that ever shown up?”

Franklin continued by saying the strategy hasn’t shown up in his eight years at Penn State or 12 total years as a head coach.

“Plus our defense was playing lights out. … We turned the ball over to start the game inside the 5-yard line and held them to a field goal,” he said.

The Penn State coach urged people to take “their fan hats off” and think about the parents who watched their sons be injured on the field and then booed.

“Is that good for college football?” he asked.

From a strategy standpoint, he said, “would it be strategic for us to tell PJ Mustipher to go down and fake an injury — one of our best players, one of our starters, one of our captains? Does that make sense?”

Despite the criticism of the booing Iowa fans, Franklin said that he still has “tremendous respect for their program.”

“I got tremendous respect for the University of Iowa, got tremendous respect for their fans,” he said. “It was a hell of a game in a tough environment. I’m not making excuses. I’m just stating how I see the facts.”