UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - James Franklin puts together daily PowerPoint presentations for his team, using examples of other athletes to reinforce to his players what they should and shouldn't say, do and tweet.
He also talks about blocking, but not the kind that relates to football.
'I'm a huge blocker,' Franklin said of his approach to Twitter. 'I want them to do the same thing. If you get anything negative on Twitter, do not respond and once you start reading and it's negative, don't keep reading it. ... They're welcome to have their opinion, and you're welcome to block them.'
Franklin is an optimist, moving ahead at full speed and trying to keep the message coming from inside and outside his team as positive as possible. Active on social media with 90,000-plus Twitter followers and sending daily birthday tweets to players and staff members, Franklin also knows just how messy words can get in the Twitter-sphere.
Trying to keep his players and staff away from the public narrative of the Nittany Lions (6-4, 2-4 Big Ten) is a point of emphasis Franklin refers to as 'blocking out all the noise.' It's not easy, though, given all the pieces of information popping up daily on the Internet.
Some of the younger players were used to being active on social media throughout high school and the recruiting process. Four-star defensive tackle Adam McLean, a regular on Twitter, decommitted from Penn State earlier this week and was bombarded with positive and negative responses from people he has never met.
Some players stop getting recruited by Penn State and other schools because their social-media persona is simply too much or downright inappropriate. Penn State's staff sends out a popular '#WeAre...Better' tweet every time the team picks up a verbal commitment, sparking interest for fans.
But the negative use of Twitter doesn't bother as many of the upperclassmen, Franklin said.
Older players such as those in Penn State's senior class, which has been through a lot ranging from coaching changes to NCAA sanctions, become a little more hardened to the critics. Getting to that point where fan reaction rolls off is difficult for any 18 to 22-year-old.
'The more you go through it, the better you get at it,' Franklin said. 'Whether it's specifically about you, whether it's about your family or whether it's about your team ... whatever it is, it affects you and it affects you because you care.'
During the team's four-game losing streak this season, armchair quarterbacks called for struggling sophomore quarterback Christian Hackenberg to be pulled in favor of anyone else. It didn't matter that the staff plans to redshirt the two scholarship freshmen behind him and that the Big Ten's reigning freshman of the year had a makeshift offensive line in front of him.
Offensive coordinator John Donovan's play-calling lit up message boards and the offensive line's inability to keep Hackenberg upright created another wave of player and coach criticism. Franklin said when things are going well, the staff and players should be praised, and when it's not going well, he wants all the blame to be put on him. Of course it doesn't always go that way, and that's when Franklin uses that block button he spends so much time talking to his players and coaches about.
'That's why Twitter put it on there, I guess, for Penn State football so we can block those guys out,' running backs coach/special teams coordinator Charles Huff said. 'You don't have to get into a Twitter war.'
Audrey Snyder: asnyder@post-gazette.com and Twitter @audsnyder4.
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