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and a Cotton Bowl victory. But his per- formance last year was nothing short of a disaster, as Penn State lost its first five games. Although he was hardly alone in his struggles, Clifford's rash of turnovers – he threw eight interceptions and had two fumbles returned for touchdowns during Penn State's losing skid – put the team in holes from which it couldn't es- cape, and the giveaways ulti- mately led to his temporary bench- ing. Clifford was de- termined to fix the problems that got Penn State into its predicament, but the narrative of the season had already changed abruptly. The Nittany Lions had opened with a top- 10 ranking, but as the losses piled up, what had once been a tantalizing oppor- tunity gradually became a mission to sal- vage successes in practically any form, big or small, to avoid a program-wide crisis of confidence. Despite the pandemic-related obstacles that stymied Clifford and the team as a whole, Penn State was able to avoid that crisis, closing its season with victories over Michigan, Rutgers, Michigan State and Illinois. In those four games, he com- pleted 65 of 99 passes for 813 yards, with four touchdown passes and, critically, just one interception. Looking back, Clif- ford sees the early struggles as a sign of how the team had been affected by the season's odd circumstances. "I think that sometimes throughout the year, with COVID being such an overar- ching problem, we just sometimes forgot about the little things. We didn't cover all the bases, and it came back to hurt us," he said. "Obviously, it was a tough year. But there are just so many lessons that were learned through it, and that's why, going into this year, it's almost like the hero's journey. We've fought through our adver- sity and now we're ready to bounce back and have an incredible year." Clifford isn't alone in his thinking. Head coach James Franklin said Clif- ford has been preparing and working "like crazy" through the summer months, and the fifth-year senior quar- terback put that work on display for an unbiased audience in June. Participating in Quarterback Takeover's Flight School, an annual event in Atlanta in which the nation's top college and high school QBs are brought in to work with noted gurus Quincy Avery and Sean McEvoy, Clifford shined. Eric Galko, director of opera- tions for the East-West Shrine Bowl, of- fered a glowing, optimistic assessment of Clifford's potential this season and beyond. "He looks great. He looks like a guy who's entering his third year as a starter and his fifth year at a college program," Galko said. "The biggest takeaway I had was just how refined he is as a passer, from a drop-back standpoint, from a bal- ance standpoint, from a running-on- the-move standpoint. He just looks like he understands the 'why' of the tech- nique and the footwork at all times, and even in practice. "He's one of the few quarterbacks that I saw who was adapting what he was learning to what his offense wants him to do and what his quarterback coach at Penn State wants him to do as well. It was really impressive. This kid has a real mas- tery or is working to have mastery of what people want him to do, technique-wise and footwork-wise. You can just see the dividends being paid for the accuracy, the velocity, all of that stuff when he's under control the way he was playing." Clifford will need to mesh those physi- cal and mental refinements when the Nittany Lions return to the field for a Sept. 4 date with Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium. Last year's backup quarterback, Will Levis, is gone, and the consequence-free nature of spring prac- tices and summer camp workouts is about to give way to the pressure and ex- pectations of the regular season. So for Penn State and its veteran quarterback, considerably more adverse circumstances await. Having already withstood the worst of what 2020 had to offer, emerging through the off-season still standing with confi- dence and a level of comfort not seen since his 8-0 start as a redshirt sopho- more, Clifford is convinced he can, and will, deliver. "I think that I've learned from every sit- uation, and that's where my confidence comes from right now," he said. "It's not fake. It's not fake confidence, and I can truly say that. I'm not just spewing it out like, 'I feel great!' "I honestly feel confident because I know that the preparation that I'm doing – I truly feel like it's unmatched right now. And I feel like our team's preparation is unmatched. We're not going to let what happened last year happen again. And that's kind of our motto right now." Poised to meet the opportunity with his best effort and performance, Clifford is determined to tell his story, no caption necessary. ■ CLOSING STATEMENT Clifford completed 65.7 percent of his passes for 813 yards in the last four games of Penn State's 2020 season. Photo by Mark Selders/Penn State Athletics >>

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