3-2-1: For Penn State football, quarterback question crucial until answered

Does Penn State have a fifth-year senior quarterback or not?

With the Nittany Lions facing an Illini team struggling through the growing pains of Bret Bielema's first season with the program, the answer might not prove to matter this weekend.

But given the limited experience of Penn State's backups at the position and a second half to the 2021 schedule that is just as challenging, if not more so, than the first, the timeline for Sean Clifford's return is of critical importance to the program's opportunities for future success.

Whether that answer comes definitively Saturday at noon, or not until Penn State's 7:30 p.m. date with the Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus the next week, it's the definitive story line that will dictate the Nittany Lions' trajectory henceforth.

This is the 3-2-1:

Penn State’s quarterback situation for Saturday can’t classify as something learned this week.

Well, maybe the very possibility of Clifford’s return would qualify, considering the apparent severity of an unspecified injury that forced him out of the Iowa game in the second quarter. Seen at the media’s partially open practice session throwing passes and taking every rep that teammates Ta’Quan Roberson and Christian Veilleux took at the position shows, at least, the suggestion that Clifford’s injury isn’t as serious as initially assumed.

All well and good, Clifford’s unknown status for the Nittany Lions’ game with Illinois this weekend doesn’t mitigate the importance of a theme that has become of paramount importance to the program through the past month.

Though able to generate success rushing the ball against the likes of Ball State and Villanova this season, it has been extremely limited in nature. Now ranked 95th in the nation on the ground with just 128.3 yards per game, the Nittany Lions failing to eclipse 100 yards in three of six games and owning a team yards per carry average of 3.7, head coach James Franklin offered his perspective on how the program has attacked the issue during his weekly radio show Thursday evening.

“The area that I think we got the greatest room for improvement is in the running game,” Franklin said. “That's been an emphasis for really the last couple of weeks. I hope you'll see a team that's able to take the next step this weekend in the run game. That will also help us with our quarterback situation. So we've emphasized that even more.”

The massive caveat to the issue is that Penn State might not be fully healthy at running back going into the weekend.

With redshirt sophomore Noah Cain unable to show signs of having fully recovered from the foot injury that force him out of action for the entirety of the 2020 season, and the absences of both Devyn Ford and Keyvone Lee from the team’s practice on Wednesday, the Nittany Lions could be limited to two options in Cain and Keyvone Lee.

"It's really kind of how it's been all year long,” Franklin said after Wednesday’s practice. “Until somebody takes ownership of that job we'll rotate all those guys, all the guys that are available."

For as much as Penn State’s woes have dominated the storyline surrounding the program since the 23-20 loss for the Nittany Lions at Kinnick Stadium two weeks ago, their opponent Saturday has plenty of issues of its own.

Despite notching a 30-22 win to open the season against Nebraska, the Illini followed the effort with four consecutive losses to UTSA, Virginia, Maryland, and Purdue before notching a 24-14 win against Charlotte. Before reaching a bye weekend themselves, the Illini followed that effort with a 24-0 loss in Champaign to Wisconsin in which senior linebacker Jake Hansen was lost for the season to injury.

While the first season at the helm for head coach Bret Bielema has been challenging, Franklin pointed Thursday to the collective experience of the personnel within the Illini program, as well as talent on the offensive side of the ball.

“They got experience at the quarterback position with transfer quarterbacks, and I think their offensive line is one of the most experienced offensive lines in college football,” Franklin said. “On offense, I've been impressed with number one (receiver Isaiah Williams). He's the guy that gave us fits last year as a scrambling quarterback. He can play quarterback, he could play receiver, which is primarily where they're using him this year. They can also put him in the backfield and running back. They could do some double passes with him, which they opened the game with last year.

“I’ve been very impressed with the freshmen tailback number zero (running back Josh McCray). He's a big bruiser, kind of an old school Big Ten tailback.”

On the other side of the ball, despite the Illini’s No. 101-ranked total defense and struggles containing both the run and the pass, Franklin said that they present some looks counter to what Penn State typically faces.

“They're doing a lot of different things and some things that we don't see very often, what we call three double clouds. They're playing a three deep with two cloud, like cover two type corners in the flat, which we don't see a whole lot,” Franklin said. “I think that's kind of the philosophy they'll take with us, is trying to limit the explosive plays, show us that we can run the ball well enough to beat them.”

At his weekly press conference Tuesday, Franklin described the program’s bye week as having been “very productive,” highlighting an increase in good-on-good and developmental periods in practices the prior week.

Along with getting a head start for prep work on Illinois, the Nittany Lions found a second massive dividend of the bye weekend’s timing.

"Obviously, I don't want to get back into that whole discussion, but we had a bunch of injuries in the Iowa game, a bunch of guys that got knocked out and did not come back,” Franklin said. “That's a physical football team. It was a physical game. So yeah, from that perspective, we were fortunate to have the bye to get a lot of those guys healthy and back.”

The results, Franklin would come to explain Thursday, were that the Nittany Lions returned from their break on Sunday with the right amount of juice without the need for a ramping up in intensity.

“I didn't see any signs of that this week. I thought our energy was really good,” he said. “You felt it in the team meetings, guys having fun and laughing. We try to do a bunch of that every single day to get the energy going. And I thought it's been really good all week long, starting on Sunday.”

This is, really, going to be the most important question for the Penn State football program until it gets a definitive answer to the affirmative, regardless of the week’s opponent.

Unable to return to competition against the Hawkeyes after taking an unimpeded hit early in the second quarter, Clifford was predictably absent from the team’s open practice during the bye week, only to return and be seen throwing passes this week.

Though Franklin laid the groundwork Tuesday, when asked about backups Roberson and Veilleux, that reps would be split between the two coming into this weekend’s game, he didn’t specify whether or not Clifford would also be part of the equation, or if the competition would ultimately be to lay claim to the role of Clifford’s primary backup.

“We'll split the reps… and it will be a competition. I think it's always a competition, but it's probably magnified a little bit.

“(We’ll be) looking at those guys closely in practice, and the scrimmage periods, and things like that. We will split those reps between those two evenly. Make it a competition.”

By Wednesday afternoon, the dynamic of the conversation had shifted considerably when Clifford was a full participant in the extremely limited window of availability to the media.

Asked after the session in his post-practice media scrum to update whether or not the glimpse of Clifford in action was indicative of the fifth-year senior’s availability for the weekend, Franklin remained non-commital.

“Not sure at this stage. All three of them took reps, a third, a third, a third. We'll see,” Franklin said. “I don't know at this stage. But we'll see where he's at by Saturday. Obviously, we’ll have an idea before that. But it was good to see him be able to get some reps today at practice, and all three of them (get reps).”

Given the limited window of 37 minutes of action for Roberson at Iowa, and having never seen true freshman Veilleux beyond practice reps on air, this is a massive unknown.

Surely, Roberson’s 7-of-21 effort for 34 yards with two interceptions against the Hawkeyes has to be taken with a grain of salt. Backed frequently into poor field position against an undeniably good defense and a jacked-up atmosphere at Kinnick, the disaster of Roberson’s first extended play in his career as a Nittany Lion came with qualifiers.

Still, as Franklin explained this week, the plan for Penn State’s offense shifts drastically from that of having an experienced, accomplished, battle-tested quarterback in Clifford to an option that is decidedly less so in either Roberson or Veilleux, if needed.

“It changes. I think with Sean, there's a lot of things we can do,” Franklin said. “I wouldn't necessarily say that our offense will change stylistically, but you want to say Ta'Quan, what what do you feel really good about? What are the 15 normal downs plays, what are the five third-down plays, what are the five red zone plays that you feel best about?

“Rep those as much as you possibly can, and then the same thing with Christian Veilleux. But we'll see how that goes. That will be a conversation that we'll need to have."

The bottom line, despite Illinois' two instances of success this season, is that Penn State is still in a significant position of strength coming into this game Saturday.

For whatever challenges the Nittany Lions are facing with Clifford's injury, with the absence of P.J. Mustipher for the rest of the season, with the unknowns still surrounding the returns of Lovett and Ford, the Illini are in much worse shape.

Through seven games, that point is probably most easily demonstrated with a look at the major statistical categories and the rank of the Illini in so many:

Already owning an offense littered with deficiencies, thrown into flux by the unknown injury status of starting quarterback Brandon Peters this weekend, the Illini will be hard-pressed to produce much of anything against a Penn State defense that has at times been dominant this season.

And, if the Nittany Lions need an elixir for Clifford's potential absence Saturday, the Illini have demonstrated enough to see that whatever direction Penn State's coaching staff would go should be enough to notch a win and move onto the next week.

Now in a circumstance in which the Nittany Lions' opportunities are still very much in front of them, the path of progress isn't nearly as important as simply getting a win, no matter how ugly it might look.

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