Penn State works to get running game untracked

The fact that Christian Hackenberg established a Penn State record for passing yards in the season-opening victory over Central Florida obscured the inability of the Nittany Lions to do much on the ground, something that James Franklin noticed.

That's why Franklin said Tuesday that his team is "going to work hard this week" on getting the running game ready for the Lions' home opener - and Franklin's first game on the Beaver Stadium sideline - Saturday against Akron.

"Obviously we need to do a better job of being able to impose our will in the running game and be able to dictate the game from that standpoint," the Penn State coach said at his weekly teleconference. "We weren't able to do that consistently on Saturday. For our development as a team and as an offense specifically, we're going to have to do that."

Hackenberg threw 47 passes in accumulating 454 yards through the air in Dublin, Ireland. That's more than twice the number of carries (23) for Penn State running backs. It seemed as if Hackenberg faked more handoffs to Bill Belton and Zach Zwinak than he actually delivered.

The absence of the rush was glaring late when the Nittany Lions were trying to run time off the clock in the fourth quarter with a 23-17 lead. Central Florida got the ball back and scored a touchdown to take the lead, but the Lions rallied and won on Sam Ficken's 36-yard field goal at the final gun.

"More than anything, it's sustaining and finishing blocks," Franklin said. "When you think you've blocked long enough, block longer to echo the whistle. We're going to work hard on them this week. We're going to continue to invest in the running game and hopefully that will pay dividends on Saturday."

The offense's final count was 454 yards passing and 57 rushing for a total of 511 yards. That's far from the balanced offense Franklin desires.

"That doesn't mean we're going to run for 300 yards and pass for 300 yards," he said. "That means we have the ability to do either one. If the thing that's going to give you the best chance to win is running the ball 70 times, we want to be able to do that. If the thing that's going to give us the best chance to win is throwing the ball 70 times, we want to have the ability to do that."

Franklin generally had good grades for the inexperienced offensive line, saying it made good progress and did a good job of protecting Hackenberg. He said the emphasis in practice this week would be on blocking and communication.

"There were flashes of some good things on the tape, but we've got to be able to finish better," he said.

Franklin said the coaching staff chose players of the week: Hackenberg on offense, defensive tackle Anthony Zettel on defense and Ficken on "wefense." Come again? "We always call special teams 'wefense' because it's the one time where everybody is coming together," Franklin said. . . . The players slept in before a late afternoon practice Sunday, and had neither practice nor classes on Monday. "It was good for our players that they had the time off and were able to rest up," Franklin said.