Penn State coach James Franklin, who asked fans the week before the game to bring “White Out energy” to Beaver Stadium, saw the results Saturday night. A crowd of 109,911 fans dressed mostly in white influenced seven different plays in the Nittany Lions’ 21-7 victory over Illinois, Franklin said. From timeouts to a bad snapshot to four false start penalties, the crowd made the difference. Even the Illini recognized that.

“It was definitely a crazy atmosphere,” Illinois tight end Tanner Arkin said. “I think you can almost feel that first kickoff in your chest. It was great and blessed to get the chance to play here, great atmosphere.”

Franklin’s post-game press conference focused mostly on the positive, though he did address some nagging issues from the win. Here’s a look at what Franklin and Illinois coach Bret Bielema said after the game.

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Penn State coach James Franklin

About the atmosphere: That was a phenomenal environment, there wasn’t even a whiteout, and we had that. The fans were phenomenal. We thought the fans had seven impactful plays in the game. Seven plays, whether it was timeouts, whether it was false starts and penalties, whether it was bad snaps, we thought they had seven plays that were important in the game. We are so grateful and appreciative of the fans and the environment we get here. It’s like nothing else in all sports, let alone college football.

About the difference in the game: For a long time, that game really played out the way Illinois wants the game to play out. They want one-possession games. They want to keep it tight. Where I think things went differently was challenging our offensive line against their defensive line. And I challenged our defensive line against their front, and I think that was really the difference in the game. We rushed to 239 yards. They rushed for 34 yards. And it’s not just about 34 yards, it’s a team committed to football. They are committed to running the game. And if you can get someone out of the style of play they want to play, good things usually happen.

On rushing for 239 yards: I think the first thing with the offensive line and the tight ends is that they have a

physical brand of football, and they are doing a great job protecting our quarterback. They give us the opportunity to lead the way. And the combination of our O-line being physical, and I don’t know if there’s a better combination of running backs in the country. There were physical runs today, so I couldn’t be more proud of that group and how they’re playing. That will be important for us for the rest of the year. But if you can run the ball like that on offense and stop the ball on defense, you know good things are going to happen for you. I don’t want to leave any doubt about that. And when you run as much as we do, you look at Kaytron Allen, averaged 5.7 yards per carry, Nick Singleton, 5.9 yards per carry, Beau Pribula, 5.7 yards per carry. You’re stupid to get rid of it, right? So Andy (Kotelnicki) did a great job calling the game, as you guys know, I’ll jump in every now and then, just to remind him to keep running or take his time to have a shot . I’m downstairs

there I am on the sidelines. Sometimes with the playing cards. It’s good to have these things to reinforce what he’s already doing. But that was the biggest reason. We have to get better in the red zone. We weren’t very good in the red zone tonight. Again, I have to give them some credit too.

On Illinois scoring on its opening drive: We have to be better at opening drives. The looks you expect to get that will help you get out on the field and be successful. That’s a week of preparation to open the game. The same goes for defense: we have to break some of the tendencies that people are not into

comfortably go down and ask them questions about their playing and what they have studied. But if you hold a Big Ten team to seven points, you have a chance to win a lot of games. I’m very proud of our defense and proud of Tom Allen and the defensive staff. If you hold people to 7 points and 34 rushing yards against a Big Ten opponent, you give yourself a chance to win a lot of games.

Kicker Sander Sahaydak missed two field goals: He’s been great to us, and we’ve just been great

won that match, and he should celebrate it like everyone else. But at the end of the day we will have a competition and all these things will play a role in the decisions we will have to make in the future. But I want Sander to celebrate this victory like everyone else, because he has put a lot into this. He’s a great kid and a great representative of Penn State.

Illinois coach Bret Bielema

About the game: Obviously disappointed with the results. I give credit to Penn State, an undefeated top-10 team, but our guys prepared well all week. They came into this game thinking they would be successful. Obviously we had a lot of success and did a lot of good things. On the plane coming here, I felt that I had a very good football team. For me as a head coach, we can’t do the things that cause us to fail. We have to give our boys more opportunities. I think we came out pretty clean. I constantly emphasize that we learn more in moments of setbacks than in moments of success.

In his team: I think we are a good football team. I like our behavior. I like their work ethic. I love them

edge. They are very disappointed, as I hope. We’ve done enough things today to cause the failures we had, but I don’t see this being something we can’t do correctly.

On his concerns about the run game: We always say it: good teams do three things; they run the ball, defend the runs and cover kicks. Obviously this will be a recipe that others will follow and see and you know they have a good game, we already knew that.

About Penn State tight end Tyler Warren: Number 44, I just love him. One of the things I’ve taken from the (NFL) is that if a guy has a lot of position flexibility, meaning he can do multiple things in addition to what he’s in, I think his skill set just allows him to do a lot more things to happen. . James does a really good job of putting players in their positions. I have a lot of respect for what he has done.

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