Penn State’s James Franklin addresses controversial calls in win over Auburn

STATE COLLEGE — Penn State’s 28-20 win over Auburn on Saturday was marred by a number of questionable calls from the officials that seemed to go against the Nittany Lions and could have dramatically altered the outcome of a game that remained in doubt until the final seconds.

Penn State coach James Franklin was visibly agitated on the sideline — the Beaver Stadium jumbotron replayed a Bo Nix throwaway that could have been flagged multiple times in a row during a break in action — and after the game, he didn’t offer many of his thoughts on what happened, other than that the officials agreed with their calls.

On Tuesday, Franklin expanded a little bit more on four calls: the intentional grounding penalty on quarterback Sean Clifford that led to Penn State losing two downs instead of one; the fake punt where defensive tackle PJ Mustipher carried into the line and the Nittany Lions appeared to get a poor spot; the aforementioned throwaway by Nix, the Auburn quarterback, that could have received an intentional grounding penalty; and a personal foul penalty by linebacker Brandon Smith.

Franklin took four minutes at the end of his Tuesday news conference to go over the calls himself.

“Just to kind of go over a couple things that did come up in the game that I want to discuss, not from a critical standpoint, but I did some of my own homework in making sure that we understood some of these things,” Franklin said. “I did want to kind of address how we interpreted some of these things that kind of happened during the game.”

The most glaring miscue by the officials was the sequence in the second quarter where Clifford was called for intentional grounding on a deep throw to intended receiver Parker Washington, who broke off his route and was nowhere near the ball. Penn State was supposed to lose a down and go to second-and-16 after the spot foul on Clifford, but the officials went right to third-and-16.

Penn State essentially punted on a third-and-11. The Southeastern Conference released a statement after the game saying the officials and the replay booth made an error.

Franklin focused more on the intentional grounding call on Clifford, who was throwing from a clean pocket and seemed to just have a miscommunication with Washington.

“The one was the intentional grounding penalty that led to the loss of downs, which I think was already addressed publicly with a statement,” Franklin said. “From the way I understand, kind of reading the rule book, talking to other people that study the game and interpret the game, you have to be under duress to get intentional grounding from the pocket. So studied that pretty closely and that was an interesting call, but I think for you to get intentional grounding from the pocket, you have to be under duress. I didn’t really feel like we were under duress in this situation.

“And just so you guys know, that was an option route, so Sean wasn’t throwing it away. We had the choice to go deep or short, and he thought the receiver was going to go deep. So I would have agreed with that call if we were in a situation where he was under duress. So that was one I just kind of wanted to talk about, make sure we’re all on the same page with some of these things.”

The second call Franklin went over was Mustipher’s direct snap on fourth-and-1 late in the third quarter. There was some question about forward progress and where the ball was when/if the play was blown dead, but Franklin focused on the more technical aspect of whether an Auburn defender was lined up over long snapper Chris Stoll, which is against the rules on kicking plays.

“The other one, we ran a fake punt on fourth-and-1,” Franklin continued. “In punting situations, in kicking situations, it is illegal to have the center covered in kicking situations, and looking at that play and in studying that play and interpreting that play, I don’t think you can cover the center on those plays. So obviously without somebody over the center, I think we would have been in a much more positive situation there.”

The next play up was Nix’s incompletion to the left side in the final seconds of the third quarter. Smith and fellow linebacker Ellis Brooks had pressure, and Nix heaved the ball up and out of bounds. Nix appeared to still be in the tackle box when he threw the ball away, which would lead to an intentional grounding.

A penalty would have set Auburn back 16 yards on a drive that ended in a field goal to cut Penn State’s lead to 21-20 early in the fourth quarter.

“(Officials) said that (Nix) left the pocket,” Franklin said. “Again, interpreting the rules and trying to learn from what happened in games and educate my staff and educate myself, not being critical, just making sure that we understand these situations. I think the ball was snapped from just inside the hash and the quarterback threw the ball from the hash. So I would not interpret that as outside of the pocket.”

Finally, Franklin went over a personal foul penalty on Smith in the fourth quarter that gave Auburn 15 yards as the Tigers were driving in an attempt to tie the game. Nix scrambled to his left and out of bounds with Smith in pursuit, and when both players were on the sideline, Smith put both hands out on Nix, and Nix immediately fell to the ground, which drew the flag.

“I thought, I guess the last one, I would say is Brandon Smith got called for a hit out of bounds, and I thought going back and watching that tape, it’s one thing to disagree with something during the game, it’s another thing to go back and look at some of these things and I thought Brandon was trying to pull up and hold the player up,” Franklin said. “That one, I guess, could go either way, but again, I think if you’re trying to pull up on the sideline after running full speed, that’s challenging.”

That drive ended when Nix threw an incompletion on a fourth-and-goal fade from the Penn State 2.

Despite the borderline or missed calls, Penn State escaped Saturday night with a 28-20 win over Auburn in the Whiteout at Beaver Stadium.

“I just want to make sure that our staff is interpreting these things the right way,” Franklin said. “It’s one thing to have a feeling during the game about how a certain play plays out, it’s another to go back and watch the tape and make sure that we understand the rules correctly and that we’re teaching the rules correctly with our team. So I did want to address some of those because obviously there were a bunch of questions about that after the game. It was difficult for me to answer them after the game because I hadn’t watched the tape.

“But after going and watching the tape and studying it and asking a bunch of questions to a bunch of different people, not going to get into how the calls were ruled by the conference, but in terms of my interpretation, the way I understand the rules and reading the rule book again, I wanted to address those questions that were asked to me after the game.”