ALTOONA, Pa. -- When starting out in the game of football, players show up to their respective practices and games, dropped off by a neighbor, family or their parents in full uniform ready to compete. Those youngsters are playing in front of their parents and for their parents, just like those donning Penn State uniforms this season.
Despite Gov. Tom Wolf allowing up to 15% capacity in most outdoor facilities, including roughly 4,000 at Beaver Stadium, most stadiums around the Big Ten Conference will have only parents.
"With Governor Wolf and the state of Pennsylvania making these decisions and then hopefully the Big Ten making this work with the parents, that we can at least get that done," Penn State head coach James Franklin said following practice Wednesday in University Park. "From day 1 here at Penn State, myself and Sandy Barbour, that's been our priority, how can we take care of our parents?"
Those parents will be able to watch their sons play throughout the Big Ten and in Beaver Stadium much like they've done since they began their football journey.
"In some ways, we're going to get back to the purest form of football where you're playing in some field, some field connected to a school or connected to a church," Franklin said. "It's your parents that are sitting there watching and it's the most, the purest form of football."
It was then storytime for Franklin he went back to his days as a pee wee football player who was driven to games by his mom.
"I remember sitting in the car with my mom driving me to the game and she's smoking a Pall Mall and I got my full equipment on and everything but my helmet, sitting next to her," Franklin recalled. "You get out, you run out of the car with the full uniform on, put your helmet on and you get going."
While this edition of football will see players take charter planes and buses, Franklin hopes the lack of fans this season takes his players back to when football was pure for them.
"I'm hoping that our players...that we get back to that special time when the game was just so pure, you just played it for the love of the game, not about the fans, not about any of those other things," Franklin said. "And I think there's also that part that we're so blessed to play at Penn State in front of 107,000 fans that I don't think that anybody takes it for granted, but if you did, I think this is kind of a wake up call to all of us.
Words will never quite be able to explain this season or the year 2020 for that matter, but the lack of fans and the playing of Big Ten games should allow most a reset and an opportunity to get some semblance of normalcy in their lives as far as college football is concerned.
"I hope this is kind of an opportunity to take a deep breath and realize how fortunate we all are," Franklin said.
More from Franklin's post-practice press conference:
• On redshirt freshman wide receiver John Dunmore, who it was announced would be leaving the program for personal reasons earlier Wednesday: "We'll just take it one day at a time...I'm not going to get into a whole lot of specific details. That's not fair to John or his family and I can't predict what the future holds."
• On the growth of quarterback Sean Clifford: "Some quarterbacks have a glaring weakness in one area and you say this is the obvious area we need to get better in. For Sean, it's just continuing to grow in his total development a little better in each area. I think that naturally comes with age, maturity and experience and I think, obviously, he and coach (Kirk) Ciarrocca have clicked so that helps."
• On adjusting to a "different" season opening with a conference foe: "It's different. There's going to be a lot of things that are different and we haven't traditionally scheduled that way. Not only since I've been here, but before I got here. Typically some out of conference games to start the season, so it is very different. I think there a lot of things that are different. It's opening with a conference opponent right from week-1...obviously we all know Beaver Stadium, with no one in there, is very different and not just for the visiting team coming but also for what we're used to."
• On former Gateway head coach and current cornerbacks coach Terry Smith: "Terry's been one of our more important hires. When you take a job, you obviously want to have familiarity with the state, which I did growing up in Pennsylvania, you want to have familiarity with the conference and the style of play and different venues.
"At the end of the day, there's also that community knowledge, the historical knowledge that's important here at Penn State and being able to bridge some of those generations and Terry has been instrumental in that. Terry is a very, very good football coach. As a head coach, he did it at the high school level, I think Terry could be a head coach in college as well. His experience playing and coaching wide receiver, I think, helps him at defensive back."
"I think he's a really good sounding board for me and the players and obviously his connection with the lettermen and the community. The other thing that's cool about Terry is he's three generations. His dad went to school here, Terry went to school here and then his son came here as one of the most highly recruited defensive backs in the country. And then Terry's daughter just graduated from the LifeLink program here."