Penn State Sports Magazine
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A P R I L 2 0 2 2 2 7 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M There isn't much that we know for sure here, especially with Nourzad not arriving till later this year. But the sum of all of these parts should be greater than what the Nittany Lions managed to produce on the field last season. — David Eckert 4 .How is the quarterback position .shaping up with two true fresh- men in the mix? Tenuous last season, Penn State's depth at quarterback has been restored this spring. Although Ta'Quan Roberson has transferred, Clifford's return and Veilleux's development have created a foundation. Joining them are Allar and Pribula, recipients of five- and three- star ratings in the On3 Consensus. That quartet gives Penn State a healthy allot- ment of scholarship quarterbacks. Expecting a massive shakeup in the pecking order, at least this spring, prob- ably isn't realistic, though. Having started 33 games and played in 38 in his five seasons at Penn State, Clif- ford is among the most veteran quar- terbacks in all of college football. He's completed 593 of 973 passes for 7,644 yards and 61 touchdowns with 22 career interceptions. Beating him out for a job he's owned for much of the past three seasons will be an uphill climb for his three freshman-eligible competitors. "Sean is our returning starter. There's no doubt about that," Franklin said. "But there's competition at every position." "It's more challenging at any position to unseat a returning starter who has been doing it for a couple of years. But there's competition across the board at every single position. You rebuild your team every single year, and there will be competition at every single position, including the quarterback position." In Veilleux, Penn State has a quarter- back with both a full spring practice and game experience already under his belt. Playing in relief of a flu-ridden Clif- ford against Rutgers and briefly in the Outback Bowl loss to Arkansas, Veilleux completed a combined 16 of 26 passes for 238 yards and three touchdowns last season. Back in the flow after missing his high school senior season due to CO- VID-19 cancellations, the former four- star prospect figures to push Clifford this spring. Setting realistic expectations for Allar and Pribula, meanwhile, requires a bal- ance of optimism and reality. Over the past decade, it's been ex- ceedingly rare for true freshman quar- terbacks to step immediately into starting roles. Only three of 20 top QB prospects in the past 10 recruiting cycles have opened their inaugural seasons as starters. That doesn't mean, however, that a job can't be won during the course of the season. Keeping in mind Franklin's assess- ment of the first weeks in the program for both true freshmen, the possibility of a competitive preseason is dependent on what happens in the coming weeks and months. Penn State will be relying on Clifford and Veilleux to show the newcomers what that looks like, from film study to the meeting room to strength and con- ditioning to actual practice sessions. With preseason camp still four months away, the team's spring drills will be about setting the stage for — and gaug- ing the possibility of — a true quarter- back battle in August. — Nate Bauer 5 .How much disruption will the re- .cent coaching changes cause this spring and beyond? With any luck, not a lot. One of the reasons Penn State hired the coordina- tors that it did — Manny Diaz to take charge of the defense and Stacy Collins to oversee the special teams — was be- cause those two coaches were steeped in the schemes and principles that the Nittany Lions were already using. Throughout Franklin's head coaching tenure, Penn State has used four down linemen in its base defense while switch- ing back and forth from a 4-3 alignment to a 4-2-5 when necessary. The Nittany Lions have recruited with that scheme in mind, and it was a prior- ity to find a good fit so that, as Franklin explained, "you're not starting all over with a completely different scheme and current players on your roster who have some concerns and question marks there, and then obviously the recruits as well." Diaz had been head coach at Miami (Fla.) before joining Penn State's staff in December. Franklin described that ex- perience as a "bonus," but his top prior- ity was to find "the most experienced, successful defensive coordinator that we could get that came from a similar scheme background." As for Collins, he and his predeces- sor, Joe Lorig, go way back. They were college teammates at Western Oregon and later served as graduate assistants at their alma mater. They also coached together at Idaho State in 2005 and '06 and have stayed in touch over the years. "There's a lot of overlap," Collins said. "We're friends, and in this coaching pro- fession, special teams is a small world. We've exchanged ideas, thoughts. There will be a lot of things that will be similar in a lot of ways." Head-spinning change is a fact of life in modern college football. That fact has been a little harder to swallow at Penn State than at other places. Coordinators such as Fran Ganter and Tom Bradley and even position coaches like Dick An- derson, Larry Johnson and Bill Kenney stuck around for decades during the Pa- terno era. But they're all gone, and their successors are a lot more professionally restless than they were. Of the nine assistant coaches that Franklin brought in after taking the Penn State job in January 2014, only one — cornerbacks coach Terry Smith — is still with the program in April 2022. In Frank- lin's eight-plus years in State College, he has had five offensive coordinators, three defensive coordinators and four special teams coordinators. Penn State did manage to avoid a more extensive staff overhaul this year, with Seider and safeties coach Anthony Poin- dexter opting to stay at PSU after elicit- ing interest from Florida and Virginia, respectively. But the best way to create continuity these days is to have a list of like-minded job candidates ready for when you need it, as you inevitably will. — Matt Herb