3-2-1: Noah Cain, Sean Clifford, NIL, and a welcomed return to normalcy

BWI editor Nate Bauer wraps up the week that was for Penn State football in his weekly 3-2-1 feature.

Beginning the week with an outstanding review for quarterback Sean Clifford, capping it with a full 7-on-7 camp event on the intramural fields on campus, and filled with personnel moves in between, there's plenty to discus.

Without further ado:

1) AJ Lytton is in, Nate Bruce is out

The biggest and most immediately impactful news for the program this week came Friday when true freshman offensive lineman Nate Bruce was confirmed to have left the program.

No reason was specified for Bruce's departure, but his move was confirmed by the program and made official with his removal from the official team roster. While the departure might not appear on the surface to be particularly consequential ahead of a 2021 season in which the Nittany Lions have a surplus of viable options to fill the two-deep, Bruce's initial performances in winter workouts create a bit of a sting for Penn State with his exit.

"I will tell you this, the one that's going to be really interesting to watch is Nate Bruce," Franklin said in February. "Nate we had in camp a year ago and I know this sounds strange, but standing next to Landon (Tengwall), he makes Landon look small. Nate showed up at 344 pounds with very little fat on him. He's massive everywhere.

"He tested extremely well with these guys when they showed up on campus. And we got him kind of partnered with Landon because Landon really knows how to work, and if Nate will figure that out, we think he has really high upside. He reminds me of the guards that we saw when I was in the SEC."

Penn State is still expected to be at the 85 scholarship limit in 2021, however, thanks to the midweek addition of former Florida State and Rivals four-star cornerback A.J. Lytton.

The nation's No. 73-ranked player in the Class of 2018, Lytton was also the No. 3-ranked prospect out of Maryland and the 11th overall corner in the country. His career with the Seminoles turning sour after his sophomore season in 2019, Lytton was removed from the program and, after a year away from the game, has resurfaced with his decision to join the Nittany Lion program. He's expected to land Penn State this weekend in advance of the start of the second summer session next week and be immediately eligible for the 2021 season.

2) Noah Cain is alive and well

Penn State head coach James Franklin doesn't talk about injuries, he has established repeatedly through his seven seasons at the helm. That didn't prevent the program's social media team from dropping some significant news - at least for appearance's sake - in a pair of posts this week.

In a short video clip released Tuesday afternoon of the Nittany Lions at work this summer, third-year running back Noah Cain makes a particularly striking appearance at the 17-second mark running through a drill. Injured and lost for the entirety of the 2020 season within Penn State's first possession of the year at Indiana last Oct. 24, Cain's status has been a frequent point of conversation with Franklin indicating confidence for his healthy return, but until this week, that had yet to be demonstrated publicly.

An important component to a Nittany Lion running game that struggled last season in his absence, along with that of the devastating loss of Journey Brown before the start of the year, Cain's return will be critical to bolstering the position.

Interestingly, Cain's presence in Penn State football's social media feed didn't end Tuesday.

Thursday evening, the running back was again front-and-center in an image next to quarterback Sean Clifford, this time running hills outside the Bryce Jordan Center with the rest of the team.

Cain appears on the latest roster release at 5-foot-10, 237 pounds.

3) It's nice to be back

Penn State's recruiting camps haven't traditionally been my favorite events every summer (hey, it's tough to get a round of golf in on a day spent entirely filming high schoolers play 7-on-7) but this year was different.

Though the Nittany Lions were able to hold recruiting events throughout the month of June thanks to the NCAA's relaxed restrictions regarding COVID-19 precautions, Friday marked the first time that the program could hold a big, buzzing, dare I say beautiful camp approximating year's past and, more important, "normalcy."

With teams traveling throughout the region to participate, and the program hosting a handful of official visitors, the entire scene was, flatly, fun to take in. Penn State coaches hobnobbing with parents, the golf carts zipping around - none more tenaciously than James Franklin's blue-striped version, and the familiar screaming of high school coaches at one- or two-man officiating crews for not knowing the down; all of it marked a welcomed return from the obstacles and frustrations of the past 16 months.

1) What's next for NIL and, more broadly, the NCAA as we know it?

The week was an eventful one for the future of college athletics, beginning Monday with a critical Supreme Court decision coming down concurrent to a memorial from conference commissioners urging the NCAA to take a school-by-school approach to name, image, and likeness rules moving forward.

Now, to be clear, the Supreme Court decision ruling in favor of Alston, decreeing that the NCAA cannot restrict its member institutions from providing "education-related" benefits to its student athletes,- is not directly related to the NIL issue. Rather, the decision sets the table for future lawsuits that could very much legally prevent the NCAA from upholding its vision of "amateurism" moving forward.

With a July 1 date for laws in seven states prohibiting the NCAA from standing in the way of players earning off their names, images, and likenesses, and the organization apparently heading toward allowing schools to determine their individual rules for the issue, though, the impact on Penn State and beyond will soon become a reality. And Thursday evening, that took on its first actualization in practical terms within the Nittany Lions' locker room as Sean Clifford posted the following to his Instagram account:

In other words, the teams are out of their locker rooms, they're on the field, the lights are on, the TV cameras are all ready, and the ball is about to be kicked off.

The question, of course, is what are the rules of the game going to be?

And at present, the reality is that there is no defined answer to that question on a national level, be it through the NCAA itself or on the federal level in terms of a law impacting every state and its institutions therein.

Stay tuned.

2) Can Sean Clifford play as well this season as his midsummer "Flight School" performance might have indicated?

We're not done with Clifford in this space, and Eric Galko, Director of Operations for the East-West Shrine Bowl, offered a big reason why earlier this week. Unequivocally, having taken in Clifford's two-day participation in QB guru Quincy Avery's "Flight School" in Atlanta last weekend, Galko was extremely complimentary of Clifford and the state of his game as the 2021 season approaches.

“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 by phone Monday. “I think the biggest takeaway I had was just how refined he is as a passer, from a drop-back standpoint, from a balance standpoint, from a running on the move standpoint. He just looks like he understands the why of the technique and the footwork, at all times, and even in practice.

“And he's one of the few quarterbacks that I saw down there who was adapting what he was learning also to what his offense wants him to do, what his quarterback coach at Penn State wants him to do as well. It was a really impressive, ‘Hey, this kid has a real mastery or is working to have a mastery of what people want him to do, technique-wise and footwork-wise,’ and you can just see the dividends being paid of the accuracy, of the velocity, of all that stuff when he's under control the way he was playing.”

What's that mean for Clifford as a little over two months separates him and the Nittany Lions from the first game of the 2021 season in Wisconsin on Sept. 4?

Coming off a brutally challenging redshirt junior campaign last fall, but with an 11-2 debut season prefacing it, the answer there is very much still to be determined. But through an offseason that has repeatedly garnered votes of confidence for Clifford - be it the comments of Franklin, new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, teammates, or a scouting director for a postseason all-star game - all signs are pointing toward a bounce back campaign for the fifth-year senior and returning starter heading into his third year at the helm.

I said it in a message board thread, one that has sparked an atypically large response in the Lions Den, but it bears repeating here:

NIL ultimately isn't going to be about the Saquon Barkleys and Trevor Lawrences of college football making deals with Campbell's Chunky Soup or Adidas. Certainly, the new landscape is going to include some blockbuster, national partnership opportunities for the absolute superstars of the game on a yearly basis, but my fearless forecast is for the broader impact to be felt on a more local level.

"There are a lot more practical applications that are going to come to fruition that everyone seems to be missing. It’s going to be about guys saying to come live at The Yards or The Retreat, and mention their name for $500 off your first month’s rent. And you’re kidding yourselves if you don’t think Sean Clifford - and literally any other starting quarterback from here on out, good, bad or in between - won’t be a viable, attractive spokesperson for local businesses. These guys have a ton of cache with students, and students are who everyone is trying to sell to."

What's interesting here is that, until the rules are set - be it nationally, or on an individual school-by-school level - the form that this takes is really going to be amorphous, for a variety of reasons.

Can an of-age football player land an appearance fee for showing up at a bar? Can a school compel its players to participate in autograph sessions? Can a player set up a summer developmental camp that competes with the program's?

All of these questions will need to be answered, and will be sooner or later, but for the time being, my bet is on smaller, localized opportunities for 99 percent of the players who are able to take advantage of changing NIL norms.

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