Penn State’s James Franklin spits fire, discrediting Iowa’s “fake injury” theory

Penn State Football fell to the Iowa Hawkeyes 23-20 this past weekend but the main storyline since has been the Iowa fanbase booing injured Penn State Football players while they laid on the turf, which James Franklin angrily dispelled

On Tuesday, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz made rather interesting remarks when talking about injured Penn State Football players in terms of his fan base booing them, even saying the fans “smelled a rat” and are not stupid, saying they knew what was going on.

Ferentz seemed to be inferring that Penn State Football instructed their players to go down, to slow momentum, and fake injuries, during Saturday’s loss to Iowa.

Unsurprisingly, Penn State Football head coach James Franklin seemed a bit perturbed about those sentiments from the Hawkeyes’ head coach, and unleashed a five minute rant when he met the media after practice Wednesday night.

"“People use this strategy to slow people down,” Franklin told reporters. “Spread offenses, tempo offenses….they huddle.” Franklin said. “So that strategy did not make sense in this situation.”"

The Nittany Lions head coach then went on to take a veiled shot at Ferentz and the Hawkeyes.

"“In our six years straight playing them, 4-2 with our record…..has that ever shown up? In my eight years as a head coach at Penn State has that shown up?” Franklin added."

Later in the rant he went on down the laundry list of injuries the Nittany Lions suffered Saturday, with about seventy percent of the players that went down not returning to the game. He did announce as well that defensive tackle PJ Mustipher, who went down on the opening drive of the game, and  will be out for the remainder of the season.

Franklin went on for about five minutes in a passionate speech that was well thought out, articulated well, and one that backed his players and his program in a way only Franklin can do it. If you are interested in watching the entire rant, it is below in a series of tweets thanks to Audrey Snyder who covers the team for the Athletic.