Penn State Football Sticking To Routine During Travel Ahead Of USC

Penn State football departed Harrisburg International Airport for Los Angeles at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday ahead of Saturday’s Big Ten matchup against USC.

Taking a five-and-a-half hour flight almost 3,000 miles across the country, though, wasn’t the norm for the Nittany Lions. To help keep the team ready to perform against the Trojans on Saturday, James Franklin kept the routine as close to a regular away week as possible, despite leaving a day earlier than normal.

“There’s two different ways of looking at it right and approaching it. You got the bowl game where you want to get out there early, get adjusted to the climate, get adjusted to the time, all those different things. And when you don’t, then you just don’t make an issue out of it,” Franklin said at his Monday press conference. “When it’s in season, talking to all the NFL teams and talking to all the college teams, you want to try to keep your routine, as consistent as you possibly can.”

Part of that weekly away-game routine is recruiting. With two Class of 2025 commits, LaVar Arrington II and Daryus Dixson, and Class of 2026 quarterback Troy Huhn all hailing from California, Franklin plans to continue his schedule and hit the recruiting trail while in the Golden State.

“We’re going to handle this Friday like we’ve been handling all these other Fridays,” Franklin said on Wednesday. “I’ll typically go out in the morning and then get back with the team and then go back out again at night. So we’ll treat it just like we’ve been doing up to this point.”

While Franklin plans to stick to his schedule, he said it’ll be the same for the players, too. On Friday, the team typically goes through a walkthrough to iron out final preparations for the game the next day.

This Friday, the Nittany Lions will run their walkthrough inside SoFi Stadium, home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.

“We’ll do a fast Friday. A big part of that was finding a location that we felt comfortable having that type of practice because, on Friday, we do a lot of our game plan-specific stuff,” Franklin said. “Being able to get into SoFi Stadium was very helpful, and being able to keep our routine the same, so pretty much very similar to what we would do before a traditional away game.”

Franklin has been preaching sticking to the same routine since his weekly press conference on Monday and the sentiment has trickled down through the rest of the ranks.

Cross-country travel will happen more often than it ever has before in the new Big Ten, and the players know the importance of treating every game the same.

Wide receiver Liam Clifford was excited to play in a venue as historic as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but, as of Wednesday, he didn’t think it would be that much of an added challenge.

Clifford said the team has a good plan to help with the long flight and, after the recovery and regeneration process, the Nittany Lions will be ready on Saturday.

“It really doesn’t change much for us, I’m just doing my normal routine,” Clifford said. “We have an awesome plan in place.”