James Franklin prepares his younger Penn State players for loud atmosphere at Maryland

For the longest time, it appeared as if new Penn State head coach James Franklin would lose his first Big Ten game, a 2014 contest which Rutgers led for much of the game at home before a howling record crowd.

But as much as Scarlet Knights coach Kyle Flood tried to stoke the fire during game week by referring to the Nittany Lions as “the team from Pennsylvania,” the visitors rallied on Bill Belton’s touchdown run with 1 minute, 13 seconds to play, giving Penn State a 13-10 victory.

After being pummeled by Penn State for so long, Rutgers thought it had a chance. The same goes for Maryland, which after being hammered 104-6 by the Nittany Lions the last two seasons, gets a chance to turn the tables on Friday night in the Big Ten opener for both teams before an anticipated packed house of 54,000.

“This game, a little bit, reminds me of my first year when we went to Rutgers,” Franklin said Tuesday at his weekly media teleconference. “Rutgers, all offseason, had been pumping the game up, and we were just coming off sanctions and that was a battle.”

Fans of the Terrapins (2-1), who are 2-39-1 all-time against the Lions, are fired up about facing the 12th-ranked Nittany Lions (3-0), but the two head coaches are keeping it low-key. Franklin and Maryland’s Michael Locksley coached together on the Terps’ staff from 2000 through 2002 and both have spoken respectfully of one another this week.

Of concern for Franklin this week is the fact that many of his young players haven’t seen or haven’t been on the field in this kind of an atmosphere. He is counting on his seniors, such as linebackers Cam Brown and Jan Johnson, and his other upperclassmen to explain to the youngsters what to expect.

“I think we have a pretty good understanding of what it’s going to be like Friday night,” the coach said. “But it doesn’t really matter what I know or what the coaching staff knows. It’s what the team knows and what the team’s prepared for, and that’s what we’re trying to do all week is get them ready for that so there’s no shock moment of what it’s going to be like.”

Franklin has two different sound systems going extra loud at practice -- one with crowd noise and the other with the Maryland fight song.

In examining the season’s first three games during last week’s off-week, Franklin likes how disciplined his team has played -- third in the nation in fewest penalties per game (3.0) and only two turnovers (both fumbles) while playing sound complementary football.

However, third-down efficiency and time of possession continues to drag down the offense. The Lions are ranked 127th of the 130 FBS teams this week in third-down conversions at 23.3 percent. Their time of possession is just over 25 minutes per game, which means the defense is out there for more than 34 ½ minutes.

“We have to be better on third down,” Franklin said, “and I think, obviously, the better we are on third down, we’ll create more opportunities on first and second down, which we’ve been pretty good at. It will create more opportunities in the red zone. It will allow us to be a little bit more consistent when it comes to time of possession.

“I don’t think time of possession is a huge factor, but obviously whenever you get to the point where you’re so far out of whack that it does factor in, it helps our defense out, helps everything, helps the offense get into a rhythm, and the run game’s a big part of that.”