Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1169916
T H E 2 0 1 9 S E A S O N ean Clifford looked mortified after breaking Penn State's vic- tory bell following a 45-13 win over Buffalo earlier this month. He had thrown for 279 yards and four touch- downs against the Bulls, rebounding sharply from a sluggish first half, and nobody was more deserving of a cele- bratory moment than the redshirt soph- omore quarterback. But when he tugged on the little rope that attaches to the clapper, it came loose in his hand. "I broke the thing," Clifford said after- ward. "I was like… whoa. I didn't think it could break." It's understandable that players would think the bell was indestructible, but the fact is, it has gotten some hard use in re- cent years. From the start of their turn- around in 2016 to their 2019 opener against Idaho, the Nittany Lions went 20-2 at home, which meant that players had 20 chances to ring the daylights out of the thing. Given the sheer volume of deferred maintenance that James Franklin inherited when he took over the program nearly six years ago, the real surprise is probably that it took this long for something to go wrong with it. How- ever, that maintenance finally is being done throughout the Lions' football in- frastructure now that the necessary cages have been rattled, so one assumes that the bell will be ready as needed now that the Big Ten season is upon us. The real question is: How often will it be needed? As they get set to open league play with a Friday night visit to Maryland, the Nittany Lions are clearly an unfin- ished product. They struggled on both sides of the line during the first two quarters of their game against Buffalo, allowing the Bulls to hold the ball for virtually the entire half and go into the locker room with a slender lead. Even after they got their mojo back in the sec- ond half, the reliance on big plays rather than sustained drives was of some con- cern to the coaching staff. The inconsis- tency that Penn State showed in the first ANY GIVEN SATURDAY (OR FRIDAY) S Following an uneven nonconference season, the Nittany Lions head into their Big Ten campaign with no illusions about the dangers that every opponent will pose in the coming weeks END RUN Pat Freiermuth helped scuttle Buffalo's upset bid by scoring two TDs in the third quarter. Photo by Steve Manuel