With the disaster of Penn State’s 2020 season fully in the rearview mirror, football is soon to return for the Nittany Lions.
And this time, it’s going to be something approximating “normal” after a year lost completely to the COVID-19 pandemic and its fallout.
Finally.
With Big Ten Media Days set for July 22-23 in Indianapolis, the start of Penn State’s preseason camp slated for August 6, and the program’s preseason media day setting up for August 7, this represents a nice opportunity to check in on the program with some of our insiders, in addition to our extensive preseason interviews that have taken place this summer, to get a comprehensive grip on where the Nittany Lions stand as the season quickly approaches.
We’re going to break this into a few updates on a position-by-position basis the next few days, but just given the depth of the subject matter at the top of the roster, I'm going to split the quarterback position into its own category to provide an assessment of where Penn State stands this summer:
Quarterback
A few things stand out about Penn State’s quarterbacks this summer coming off of what was inarguably a tough season for the position in 2020.
The first is that, as the clear presumptive returning starter, fifth-year senior Sean Clifford appears to be in a good place. I’ve reported it repeatedly over the past couple of months, but every indication from inside and outside of the program - including the glowing assessment from Erik Galko during his Flight School participation in June - is that Clifford is physically and mentally in a good spot.
And really, I should add here that has included coming from Clifford himself, who is typically pretty forthcoming in media interviews and appearances. To me, the fact that he was able to acknowledge that he wasn’t himself at times last season, and now feels like he has weathered that storm and come out of it on the other side feeling more confident and sure of himself, is the strongest indicator to that end.
“It's one of those things where, yeah, obviously it was a tough year, but there's just so many lessons that were learned through it,” Clifford said in our interview this summer. “And that's why going into this year, it’s almost like the hero's journey. We've fought through our adversity, and now we're ready to bounce back and have an incredible year. I'm really excited about this team and the position that I'm in to lead. I'm just ready to kind of move on.”
But what also has come to the forefront in conversations about Clifford this offseason is that, at least internally, he isn’t being blamed for how the start of last season transpired.
No one knows this more than the guys who live it, but there’s a constant contradiction between players wanting to take full responsibility and ownership for their mistakes against that of the reality that as “the greatest team sport there is” according to James Franklin, individual performances are rarely truly isolated.
In that sense, such a big part of Clifford’s performance had to do not only with the fact that Journey Brown and Noah Cain were hurt, or that they transparently affected his protections, or that the offensive line didn’t play particularly well as it adjusted to Phil Trautwein’s ground-up rebuild, but also that Clifford himself changed as a result. Forced into a circumstance where Penn State simply wasn’t going to succeed without him performing well - real or not, that was Clifford’s perception - he no doubt was taking too much of the pressure and responsibility onto his shoulders both on the field and in his head.
We’ll tackle the other topics in the coming sections, but the reality for Clifford and Penn State this season is that the rectification of those other position groups is expected to directly pay dividends at quarterback. Now armed with an experienced set of running backs all vying to separate themselves, a top-to-bottom group of tight ends as good as any in James Franklin’s tenure at Penn State, receivers who’ve established themselves, and an offensive line with a chance to be pretty good, the environment that helped create Clifford’s public unraveling last season has in many ways found resolution.
Now, does that make Clifford’s performance this year a sure thing? Of course, it doesn’t. But given the literal improved health and experience of the offense this offseason, combined with Clifford’s evolution and growth, and the introduction of Mike Yurcich as the new offensive coordinator (and the confidence that has inspired position and program-wide), the opportunity is there.
The back side to all of this is that, at present, Clifford is the only viable option at the position.
Though it was unlikely Will Levis would have seriously threatened Clifford to be the starter this season, his departure to Kentucky and Micah Bowen’s exit to Oklahoma leaves Penn State with only Ta’Quan Roberson and true freshman Christian Veilleux at the position.
The bottom line here is that Penn State isn't quite sure what it has at the position given the complete lack of game reps for either guy. That doesn’t mean Roberson or Veilleux can’t or won’t develop into legitimate quarterbacks at Penn State as both guys are just beginning their careers with the Nittany Lions, but it does mean that should a problem arise with Clifford, this is a program that is more or less in the dark about how his replacements would perform in games.
Again, to not paint an overly bleak picture here, there have been reasons for optimism with both Roberson and Veilleux. But this has been, is, and will continue to be about Sean Clifford at the position for Penn State this season.
And this time, it’s going to be something approximating “normal” after a year lost completely to the COVID-19 pandemic and its fallout.
Finally.
With Big Ten Media Days set for July 22-23 in Indianapolis, the start of Penn State’s preseason camp slated for August 6, and the program’s preseason media day setting up for August 7, this represents a nice opportunity to check in on the program with some of our insiders, in addition to our extensive preseason interviews that have taken place this summer, to get a comprehensive grip on where the Nittany Lions stand as the season quickly approaches.
We’re going to break this into a few updates on a position-by-position basis the next few days, but just given the depth of the subject matter at the top of the roster, I'm going to split the quarterback position into its own category to provide an assessment of where Penn State stands this summer:
Quarterback
A few things stand out about Penn State’s quarterbacks this summer coming off of what was inarguably a tough season for the position in 2020.
The first is that, as the clear presumptive returning starter, fifth-year senior Sean Clifford appears to be in a good place. I’ve reported it repeatedly over the past couple of months, but every indication from inside and outside of the program - including the glowing assessment from Erik Galko during his Flight School participation in June - is that Clifford is physically and mentally in a good spot.
And really, I should add here that has included coming from Clifford himself, who is typically pretty forthcoming in media interviews and appearances. To me, the fact that he was able to acknowledge that he wasn’t himself at times last season, and now feels like he has weathered that storm and come out of it on the other side feeling more confident and sure of himself, is the strongest indicator to that end.
“It's one of those things where, yeah, obviously it was a tough year, but there's just so many lessons that were learned through it,” Clifford said in our interview this summer. “And that's why going into this year, it’s almost like the hero's journey. We've fought through our adversity, and now we're ready to bounce back and have an incredible year. I'm really excited about this team and the position that I'm in to lead. I'm just ready to kind of move on.”
But what also has come to the forefront in conversations about Clifford this offseason is that, at least internally, he isn’t being blamed for how the start of last season transpired.
No one knows this more than the guys who live it, but there’s a constant contradiction between players wanting to take full responsibility and ownership for their mistakes against that of the reality that as “the greatest team sport there is” according to James Franklin, individual performances are rarely truly isolated.
In that sense, such a big part of Clifford’s performance had to do not only with the fact that Journey Brown and Noah Cain were hurt, or that they transparently affected his protections, or that the offensive line didn’t play particularly well as it adjusted to Phil Trautwein’s ground-up rebuild, but also that Clifford himself changed as a result. Forced into a circumstance where Penn State simply wasn’t going to succeed without him performing well - real or not, that was Clifford’s perception - he no doubt was taking too much of the pressure and responsibility onto his shoulders both on the field and in his head.
We’ll tackle the other topics in the coming sections, but the reality for Clifford and Penn State this season is that the rectification of those other position groups is expected to directly pay dividends at quarterback. Now armed with an experienced set of running backs all vying to separate themselves, a top-to-bottom group of tight ends as good as any in James Franklin’s tenure at Penn State, receivers who’ve established themselves, and an offensive line with a chance to be pretty good, the environment that helped create Clifford’s public unraveling last season has in many ways found resolution.
Now, does that make Clifford’s performance this year a sure thing? Of course, it doesn’t. But given the literal improved health and experience of the offense this offseason, combined with Clifford’s evolution and growth, and the introduction of Mike Yurcich as the new offensive coordinator (and the confidence that has inspired position and program-wide), the opportunity is there.
The back side to all of this is that, at present, Clifford is the only viable option at the position.
Though it was unlikely Will Levis would have seriously threatened Clifford to be the starter this season, his departure to Kentucky and Micah Bowen’s exit to Oklahoma leaves Penn State with only Ta’Quan Roberson and true freshman Christian Veilleux at the position.
The bottom line here is that Penn State isn't quite sure what it has at the position given the complete lack of game reps for either guy. That doesn’t mean Roberson or Veilleux can’t or won’t develop into legitimate quarterbacks at Penn State as both guys are just beginning their careers with the Nittany Lions, but it does mean that should a problem arise with Clifford, this is a program that is more or less in the dark about how his replacements would perform in games.
Again, to not paint an overly bleak picture here, there have been reasons for optimism with both Roberson and Veilleux. But this has been, is, and will continue to be about Sean Clifford at the position for Penn State this season.
