STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Tommy Stevens dropped to the ground to bang out pushups with the rest of the offense after the defense had the upper hand following a drill down around the goal line.
While the backup quarterback was still sporting a walking boot, redshirt freshman Sean Clifford and Trace McSorley were right there down on the ground with him.
The pecking order at quarterback is clearly defined with McSorley, the unquestioned starter, taking on the role of mentor to the younger quarterbacks this spring while Stevens, the versatile backup, is on the mend. Because of Stevens' undisclosed injury Clifford has seen a noticeable uptick in practice reps, which gives him an opportunity that he otherwise would've been a year away from having.
The "blessing in disguise" of Stevens' injury as James Franklin put it will likely pay dividends in August when the Lions are in camp and Clifford gets a chance to go in and show what he's learned from the reps this spring. The additional film study that will come off his cut ups of spring practice will give both Clifford and the staff a larger body of work to breakdown and learn from this summer.
"He’s been getting a bunch of reps in practice and he’s making mistakes, he’s learning from it," Franklin said this week. "He’s very conscientious. He asks good questions and takes a lot of really good notes. Our defense does a lot and as you can imagine during camp and during spring ball it’s probably heavier than it even is in games because we’re installing all the things that we may run in the season and then as the season goes we’re kind of refining and honing in on who we’re going to be, but right now we’re installing every single day."
One of the intangibles the coaching staff doesn't have to worry about figuring out this spring with Clifford is his competitiveness. While Franklin rarely strays from his policy of addressing injuries, when trying to describe Clifford's competitive nature the head coach couldn't help himself.
"You guys know I don’t talk about injuries a whole lot, but since it’s over, he missed a lift in the weight room one day and punched the bench and broke his hand," Franklin said. "This was months ago. Obviously that’s not what we want a quarterback to do and that was a great teaching moment, but he’s a very, very fiery competitor."
That explains why Clifford had his hand heavily wrapped ahead of the Fiesta Bowl, but for a program that has four core values plastered throughout the football building -- with one of the four being 'compete in everything you do' -- it's safe to say Clifford is embracing his extra reps this spring.
While Penn State throws a lot of different looks at Clifford -- and Wednesday night was the first installation of three down which brought with it changes in protections and blocking -- he has McSorley, Stevens and offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne to huddle with while working through some of these teachable moments.
Clifford and McSorley are always paired up during Penn State's morning workouts and while McSorley said his practice reps haven't been drastically reduced headed into his senior season, he has embraced the chance to bring along Clifford.
"He’s a really good athlete," McSorley said.
Franklin added that Clifford is a "better athlete than people probably give him credit for."
"He’s got a strong arm and really what you kind of love about him is his competitiveness and how much he really wants to be successful," McSorley said. "That’s the exciting thing about him is he’s hardworking, he’s diligent and he wants to be successful so bad that it drives everyone else to be successful and do everything they can around him."