Blue White Illustrated

ean Clifford enjoyed a pretty good afternoon at Michigan last month, something that not a lot of Penn State quarterbacks over the years have been able to say. Clifford finished with 236 yards of total offense, including a 28-yard rushing touchdown, and he didn't have a single turnover, as the Nit- tany Lions defeated the Wolverines, 27- 17, to earn their first win of the season and their first in Ann Arbor in more than a decade. After the game, the redshirt junior said the reason for his success was that he had been able to get into a mental rhythm that he called a "flow state." "I'm minoring in psychology, and one thing we've talked about is when an ath- lete, or anybody really, gets in their state of flow," Clifford said. "It's definitely a game-changer, and it's fun when you get in that state where you just kind of play loose." Clifford is a fiery guy, and so is his head coach. James Franklin has brought a lot of energy and emotion to the Penn State sideline over the years, and the Lions have ridden those euphoric waves to some big successes, in- cluding a Fiesta Bowl victory, a Big Ten championship and the program's only win over Ohio State of the post-Paterno era. But the flow goes in both direc- tions, good and bad. Sometimes, when bad things start happening, there's a cascade effect that brings about even more bad things. It happened to Penn State in the Rose Bowl a few years ago and also in come-from-ahead losses to Ohio State in 2017 and '18. Prior to the Nittany Lions' trip to Michigan last month, it was happening on a weekly basis during the 2020 season. Clifford's junior season has been char- acterized by boom-or-bust cycles, and as their quarterback goes, so go the Nittany Lions. That was never more evident than in the Iowa game just a week before the team's trip to Michigan. The coaching staff had pulled him in favor of Will Levis after a turnover-plagued loss at Ne- braska, but then Levis began fumbling, and in went Clifford again. The once- and-future starter threw touchdown passes on his first two snaps of the game, reminding everyone why he had won the job in the first place. But after a few mo- ments of hero ball, the turnover problems resurfaced, and Penn State's comeback bid ended with 305-pound defensive tackle Daviyon Nixon strutting 71 yards with an interception for the clinching touchdown in a 41-21 Iowa victory. The pick by Nixon was Clifford's eighth in five games, and afterward Franklin lamented the Lions' all-too- frequent giveaways, calling them "the story of the season." It's been a few weeks since then, and the season is rap- idly drawing to a close. With Penn State's final games approaching, a big question arises: Which way is the flow going? Are the team's struggles throughout the 2020 season likely to have a carryover effect that extends into 2021? Or will the Lions be able to put all this unpleasantness behind them and play more like they did at Michigan Stadium? The circumstances in which it's being played suggest that the 2020 season is its own separate thing. Nothing about this season is normal, from the game day at- mosphere to the practice and meeting routines to the interactions that players are able to have with their coaches, their families and their fellow students. Even after Penn State got out of its rut with the victory over Michigan, Franklin couldn't help but note just how bizarre and unset- tling the past few months have been. "The whole year has just been strange," he said. "You drive up to the Big House and there's not a car on the road, there's nobody giving you the middle finger on the ride up to the sta- dium like you normally get. The parking lots are empty. We couldn't meet at the hotel because there were no meetings allowed at the hotel. There were no meals allowed at the hotel. And then the Wi-Fi wasn't working, so we couldn't even have Zoom meetings. "It's weird," he continued. "You're looking at a bunch of cardboard cutouts [at the stadium] and there's nobody there. And this is Big Ten football, 110,00 fans. I could never have imagined this in my wildest dreams. I can't put into words how surreal this whole year has been." Through the season's first six weeks, Penn State was one of only six Big Ten teams that had been able to play all of its scheduled games. That's a testament to its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, but there was also some good fortune GO WITH THE FLOW S It's been a boom-or-bust season for the Lions and their mercurial quarterback, Sean Clifford. What does that mean for the team's future? ON THE RUN Clifford had a 28- yard touchdown run in Penn State's victory over Michigan. Photo courtesy of Penn State Ath- letics >>

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