Blue White Illustrated

here's no such thing as an incon- sequential snap when you're a young backup quarterback. So when Ta'Quan Roberson stepped onto the field in the final minutes of Penn State's regular-season finale against Rutgers two seasons ago, it didn't mat- ter, not even a little, that the Nittany Lions were up by three touchdowns. It didn't matter that the crowd had begun making its way back to the parking lot to escape the plunging late-November temperatures or that thousands of TV viewers had no doubt turned the chan- nel to a more competitive game. To Roberson, a true freshman from Orange, N.J., who was making his first appear- ance in a college game, all that mattered was that there were plays to be run, and he was going to be the one running them. "I was just blessed to have the oppor- tunity to step on the field at Beaver Sta- dium," he told me last summer in a Zoom interview with fellow Penn State backup quarterback Will Levis. "Any- time you step on the field, you have to cherish the moment. That's definitely what I did. I cherished the moment. I was really excited to get in, especially against my [home] state team. It was just a really exciting moment for me." Roberson had taken over with the Nit- tany Lions sitting at Rutgers' 6-yard line after the Scarlet Knights had mishandled a kickoff with just over five minutes to play. His first two plays were handoffs to Ricky Slade that yielded only 3 yards. A keeper by Roberson on third down went nowhere, and on fourth- and-goal at the 4, his first pass as a collegian fell incomplete, as Dan Chisena couldn't come up with the ball in the end zone. To those of us looking on from afar, it was an unevent- ful sequence of plays from a workmanlike 27-6 victory. But to Roberson, the moment mattered. They all matter. As he prepares for his third season in the program, the question for Roberson – and for the Nittany Lion offense as a whole – is this: What are those mo- ments adding up to? Even more than in most years, the team's quarterback situ- ation has been heavily scrutinized this spring, at least to the extent that A CALL TO ARMS As they remake their offense under a new coordinator, the Nittany Lions have a lot riding on the continued development of Sean Clifford and his backups >> T

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