Penn State will live and die with Clifford's wild swings

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- These four words, stated perfectly by tweeter Matt below, sum up Penn State football:

Bingo.

The Sean Clifford Experience.

Like an amusement park, you know? There are some terrible rides that are really boring or make you frustrated, but also some rides that are more thrilling than you thought you'd be getting.

Think about what we saw Thursday night, in a span of about 15 minutes.

The guy who threw this pick six that looked like it would lose the game -- one of the worst passes you'll see from a veteran college quarterback, yet the kind of pass we've come to expect too often from Clifford ...

... is also the same guy who came out and orchestrated a gorgeous and incredibly clutch 80-yard drive in 1:25, making one good throw after another, and won the game for Penn State, 35-31 over Purdue, on this touchdown pass to Keyvone Lee with 57 seconds to go.

This is who Sean Clifford is. It's who he always has been, and anyone expecting anything different from him in his his sixth college season and fourth as a starter had it reinforced Thursday night that nothing has really changed.

If we look at this from a personal standpoint, how can you not feel good for Clifford? The pick-6 he threw that gave Purdue a 31-28 lead with 8:29 was such a horrendous throw that it's really kind of human nature to wish that someone who looked so bad there could find a way to redeem himself.

Forget about it being Clifford for a minute. Meaning, forget about it being the average college quarterback who has drawn the scorn of much of the enormous Penn State fan base, and who certainly did so after that awful-looking pick six.

If any guy were to make that throw, how could you not feel good for him that he would come back to deliver the kind of heroics Clifford did at Ross-Ade Stadium?

Look, by now, we know who Clifford is. We know what he's capable of doing and what he's not capable of doing. We know that he is unbelievably maddening because he will make one or two or three ugly mistakes, but still at the same time is talented enough, experienced enough and confident enough to be able to come right back and do something good.

I asked Clifford after the game what was going on in his mind after the pick six and if he had any doubts that he could still redeem himself.

"Nah, I mean, the guys trust me," Clifford said. "The coaches trust me. And it was just one of those where, it was a nasty win, but it's one that I'll remember forever, honestly. It was up-and-down game, made a lot of mistakes, but Week 1, it's crazy.

"I feel like personally I've overcame a lot here at Penn State," Clifford added. "So that was nothing new. it was just another play, another game."

We can talk all about the offensive line and how that will determine the season for Penn State. And it's certainly true.

But the Nittany Lions can still win games if Clifford plays really well. And obviously if he doesn't play well, they can lose to just about anybody.

Because of Clifford's pick six, Penn State was one play from losing its opener and feeling pretty bad about how things went out here. Purdue completed a long pass on a crazy play with 2 1/2 minutes to go for a first down, and had it stood, the Boilermakers likely would have won. But the call was overturned because the ball hit the ground, Penn State got the ball back, and Clifford went to work to win the game.

That's how crazy all of this is. If that Purdue pass play had stood, everybody in Penn State Nation would be ripping Clifford to shreds today for that pick six, for not improving, for losing the game.

But he got another chance. One last chance. And he looked fantastic for about a minute.

Seeing him on that drive, for that minute, makes people think that, hey, Clifford can be a good quarterback. Why doesn't he play like that all the time?

Why do we have to sit through lousy interceptions like the one he threw earlier that make us cringe?

James Franklin called it "a character win" after the game, and I asked him specifically about the character Clifford showed in leading that final go-ahead TD drive.

"Sean is -- in my opinion, everybody's got different lenses -- but, in my opinion, Sean's shown character over his entire career," Franklin said. "So I'm really happy for him. But yeah, the pick six, obviously you never want turnovers, and then turnovers for touchdowns are significant. But, yeah, we battled back.

"I thought the sideline was great with him. I thought Coach (Mike) Yurcich was great with him, which that's really important, too. The guy knows he made a mistake. You don't need to come to the sideline and get your head ripped off. So, I was proud with how really the whole organization handled it. And he'll grow from this, as well, even though he's a 38-year-old, eight-year senior."

You'd think such a veteran QB would have played better than Clifford did for much of the game. And you'd think such a veteran QB could be in for a great senior season.

Who knows? Maybe Clifford will indeed have a great season.

But even in victory Thursday, we all saw that he's still really just the same inconsistent quarterback we've seen for 13 years (LOL).

* Clifford completed 20-of-37 passes for 282 yards with four touchdowns and the one interception. He also had a really peculiar night.

He took a big hit to his left leg in the first half, a hit that looked like it could have caused a serious injury. But he got up and scored on a 2-yard QB keeper not long after.

Notice how Clifford was pushed a good 2 yards forward on this TD keeper.

To start the second half, Clifford jogged back into the locker room and had to miss one offensive series. Prized freshman Drew Allar came in for one series in his college debut, then Clifford was back out there for his next series.

The official word for Clifford's missed time was cramps. That's what Franklin said.

I don't like to get involved in weird rumors, especially of a personal nature, but this was circulating around the stadium after the game. And if you watch Clifford's reaction in the interview, it's easy to wonder why he was being so coy about having "cramps."

* Allar looked poised and dangerous in his debut. The freshman, who was named the backup QB earlier this week, completed 2-of-4 passes for 26 yards and certainly looked like he belonged on the field.

Allar may not see the field much this season if Clifford stays healthy. But there's a ton of hype around the kid, and we got our first real glimpse why Thursday.

Clifford didn't get to see Allar's drive, but he did talk to him about it after the game.

"I heard he played really well when I went out," Clifford said. "It gives me a lot of confidence as a quarterback -- all three of (the backups), they're really talented. And for me, if you if you have a ding or something happens, it's nice to know that a guy's gonna come in and execute.

"I didn't get to see Drew play that drive, but they all said he looked good, and I'm happy that he got his first drive at Penn State. I thought it was good for him, kept us on the field, moved the ball I heard.

"He was just happy we got the win. ... I asked him, we went through the drive a little bit, just talked through it and sounded good."

* Before we talk more about Penn State, goodness gracious, Purdue coach Jeff Brohm has a lot of explaining to do about his horrendous clock management late in the game.

The Boilermakers took the 31-28 lead after the pick six, and then got the ball back two more times. They continued to keep firing away in their passing game -- which in all fairness is really what Purdue does -- but throwing a bunch of incompletions kept stopping the clock, when they could have run more time off with some running plays.

Again, if Aidan O'Connell's long pass with 2 1/2 minutes left had indeed been complete, Purdue probably would have won. 

But, it wasn't, and Brohm was getting a lot of criticism after the game for not milking the clock.

It paid off for Penn State, which had plenty of time to score once it got the ball back with 2:22 remaining.

* A win is a win, and any win in the Big Ten is good. Especially on the road.

What this win does for Penn State is keep open the possibility for a really good season, maybe even 10 wins. Yes, Clifford and everyone else will have to play better to make that happen, but O'Connell and Purdue are pretty good, so nobody should sneeze at this victory at all.

* Penn State's defense made things tough on O'Connell, who completed 71 percent last season but was only 29-of-58 Thursday. He threw for 356 yards and one TD.

The Boilermakers have a nice, sophisticated passing game that is predicated on quick throws and accuracy from the QB. But with O'Connell misfiring on 50 percent of his throws, Purdue was in trouble. It needed the pick-6 to have a chance to win, and even that wasn't enough.

Penn State's secondary played well for much of the night, with some exceptions. Joey Porter Jr. was in on a whole bunch of plays, and while he failed to catch a potential interception and did get called for one pass interference in the end zone early, he still made a bunch of good plays as the night went on.

Daequan Hardy came up with a big pass breakup on third-and-6 in the closing minutes to get the ball back for Penn State's offense.

* The game turned heavily in Penn State's favor late in the first half when it looked like Purdue was going to get a score, but Zakee Wheatley forced a fumble that Porter recovered. Two plays later, Clifford scrambled to his right and hit tight end Brenton Strange, who broke a couple of tackles and took it 67 yards to the house for a TD and 21-10 halftime lead.

* Penn State's offensive line left a lot to be desired in the opener, playing about the same way it did last year. The line didn't get a lot of push on running plays, and Penn State finished with only 98 yards rushing. The Lions had 77 yards in the first half but did little on the ground after that.

The line also struggled to protect Clifford in a lot of situations, one of which led to him getting hit but luckily avoiding injury.

"We weren't able to get any explosive runs, which is something that we're committed to doing," Franklin said. "Overall, I think the line battled, but too many many pressures, too many sacks. ... So we've got to keep chipping away at that."

* All four running backs played early in the game, starting with Lee, then Nick Singleton, then Kaytron Allen, then Devyn Ford. No one carried more than nine times, and no one rushed for more than 31 yards (Allen).

If Penn State is going to do this running back by committee thing, it certainly will get all the guys experience. But the downside is that, if a guy is running the ball well but his series is over and it's not his turn to play for a while, then he's over on the bench for a long time until he gets another chance. That happened early in the game with Singleton, who got off to a nice start and then sat on the bench for nearly an hour.

But hey, there's no doubt Singleton and Allen look like they could be good.

Still, with the game on the line in the closing minutes, Lee was on the field for a couple series. And he caught the winning touchdown pass.

Lee being in the game should not be a surprise because he's played a lot of football and understands all the ins and outs of the position at this level, as opposed to the true freshmen Singleton and Allen.

* I've already predicted that no one should be surprised if Mitchell Tinsley ends up being the team's best wide receiver, not Parker Washington. Tinsley, the transfer from Western Kentucky, led Penn State with seven catches for 84 yards and one TD. Washington had two catches for 30 yards.

TOUCHDOWN PENN STATE@PennStateFball scores their first TD of the season and takes the lead in the first half 🙌 pic.twitter.com/0TI7KY53Z0

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 2, 2022

KeAndre Lambert Smith caught four balls for 48 yards and one TD.

I asked Tinsley what he learned about Clifford after seeing him overcome the interception and lead the team to victory.

"I didn't learn anything. It's something that, as a team we already knew," Tinsley said. "We have major confidence in Sean, and at the end of the day, we know he'll get the job done."

* There was a bad targeting call on freshman linebacker Abdul Carter in the first half. I initially thought the call was good and that Carter hit the Purdue player head to head, but it does appear in this replay that he led with his shoulder.

Here's what Franklin had to say about the call:

"So, the targeting, it's one of those that we've talked about before. There's targeting where guys lead with the head. And then there's targeting where the ball carrier is to a point that there's no way to keep your head up. Now, if you're going to match pad level to pad level, that's gonna happen. So I don't think there was any malicious intent there.

"We were just trying to stop the ball carrier, and I think of all of you, if you go home and your living rooms or you walk out of here and at some point, you drop down, it's impossible to keep your head up, and that's what happened on that play. So he'll learn from it."

* Penn State rotated a bunch of players in on both sides of the ball, including a lot of youngsters. Franklin said that would be the plan coming in, and the team did exactly that, which will help the young guys in a big way from an experience standpoint.

TRAVEL ROSTER

Here's a look at Penn State's entire travel roster.

THIS PLACE

Ross-Ade Stadium is a quaint stadium in the Big Ten, not a behemoth like Beaver Stadium, the Big House, or the Horseshoe. Ross-Ade seats only 57,236, and it was packed Thursday. The stadium is set to undergo a $45 million renovation in the coming years.

ON THE WAY TO THIS PLACE

I made the drive along I-70 to Indianapolis and then here, and noticed a billboard along the way pointing out a cool place. It's the Hoosier Gym, where the movie "Hoosiers" was filmed. I had no idea it was an attraction, and it turned out to be one of the coolest places I've ever visited.

You can walk right in and play basketball on the gym, which is immaculate and looks exactly like it did in the classic film. It's in Knightstown, Ind., so if you're ever in the Indy area for any reason, I'm telling ya this is a bucket list kind of stop for a sports fan or movie buff.

Highlights of my jump shot and pics of the gym below.