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• Thanks to the 4^th Estate assigned to cover all the ins and outs/nooks and crannies/snaps crackles and pops of Penn State Football, we learned this week that the Gen Z Nittany Lions are huge fans of cranking the loud speakers up to 11 and blasting Phil Collins at practice. Who knew? Since that’s the case, might we suggest skipping the haunting tones of In The Air Tonight or sick synth beats of Sussudio and instead just play Land of Confusion on a continuous loop this week and next? Because no song title hits the nail on the head better when it comes to describing the current state of the Penn State offense.

• Yes, the Nittany Lions pushed their FBS-best streak of 30+ point games to 12 today. But it wasn’t easy. And it definitely wasn’t pretty. EVERYTHING THE OFFENSE DOES JUST SEEMS HARD. I don’t know how else to explain it. Zero flow. Zero rhythm. Zero consistency. Zero identity. As we wrote in our ‘Dial M For Methodical’ blog post earlier this week, “…like a disgruntled significant other who sat you down for one of those ‘We Need To Talk’ talks, it’s not just ONE thing. It’s a lot of things.’”

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There aren’t a lot of perfect endings in sport. At least, very, very few that don’t take place on a national championship stage.

But Penn State, as the rain poured down in Southern California on Monday night, got as near to a perfect close to the 2022 season as circumstances were going to allow. A team that had frustrated and confused its fans throughout a promising but inconsistent season blew the doors off a good Utah team with a flurry of second-half strikes to win 35-21. The Nittany Lions checked so many of the boxes that had eluded them in losses to Michigan and Ohio State and even a few of their grittier wins—big plays on offense AND defense, run-pass balance, turnover-free football and, really, as clean of a game as we’ve seen from them in several years.

And it was a win that provided equal parts hope for the near future and satisfaction with the present.

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Sponsor: For The Blogy’s 2022 season coverage was sponsored by FANATICS. Penn State 2023 Rose Bowl championship on-field hats & T-shirts (the same ones the players wore) are available right HERE.

We just witnessed one of the greatest and most cherished traditions of a sport that is, more than any other, built on them, passing into history. With Pasadena playing host to a playoff semifinal next season and the erstwhile Granddaddy of Them All set to become just another postseason venue in the years to follow, the time of the Big Ten and PAC-12 champions meeting in the Rose Bowl has officially ended. The last paragraph of that era’s closing chapter has been written, and that’s as close you’re going to get to finality right now in the volatile world of college athletics. Whether you enthusiastically embraced the Rose Bowl mystique or dismissed it as so much Big Ten navel-gazing, it’s hard to deny there was something special – something uniquely “college football” – in the annual clash of the cold-weather Rust Belt and Sun-drenched West Coast bathed in the light of the California Golden Hour before a national audience on New Year’s Day. And now it’s over.

On to the knee-jerk Thoughts & Opinions, fresh from the Nittany Valley…

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This is the last Sean Clifford column I will write*.

*-this year

Monday’s Rose Bowl game will mark the final time in a Penn State uniform for Clifford, the gregarious and steadfast quarterback from Cincinnati, Ohio. Few players who have worn that uniform have inspired as much consternation from fans, or as many words from those who write about the team, with very few in either group in want of opinions.

As the Nittany Lions prepare to turn the page to just the fourth (full-time) starting quarterback in the soon-to-be 10-year James Franklin Era, it’s worth exploring exactly what has made Clifford such a lightning rod for criticism and exactly how much of it he has earned.

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For our readers who have been A) abducted for the past month or B) experiencing never-ending rolling power blackouts or C) stuck in line at PHL, DTW, IAH, or some other three-lettered torture chamber/airport since early December trying to reschedule your canceled Southwest flight, All-American Penn State cornerback Joey Porter Jr. will be the only healthy-ish Nittany Lion defender choosing to sit the Rose Bowl on January 2. If not the greatest cornerback who ever called Beaver Stadium home, then certainly slated to be the highest-drafted, JPJ opted to forego the free trip to Pasadena, thus eliminating any chance that a tweak, pull, sprain, or tear might jeopardize the millions of dollars that await him on future Sundays. We certainly wish JPJ luck, but as his famous father’s former boss like to say: “We’ll focus our attentions on the players who make themselves available to us.”

Now, let’s talk about Ji’Ayir Brown. Can we talk about Ji’Ayir please, Mac? I’ve been dying to talk about Ji’Ayir with you all day. After setting the pace for all of College Football in interceptions last year (6), Brown leads all B1G safeties in PFF pass rush grade (88.5), pass rushes (44), sacks (3) and QB pressures (10). If we expand our search parameters to include the Pac-12, the only guy who tops any of those numbers is (ironically) Utah’s Cole Bishop. Coincidence…or conspiracy?

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Keyvone Lee: BACK. Caedan Wallace, Juice Scruggs and Olu Fashanu: BACK to BACK to BACK. Nick Singleton: FAST. Kaytron Allen: FAT(man).

After patching the run game together for much of November with wads of Hubba-Bubba, rubber cement and the free, second can of Flex Seal (James Franklin ordered “within the next 15 minutes” when the commercial popped on – Smart Man), the Nittany Lions appear to be back at full strength against the Utes when these two squads clash just on the other side of the calendar crease.

Penn State’s tandem of true freshmen (Singleton and Allen) combined for 2,346 all-purpose yards…more than 400 yards better than any single player in College Football this year. There’s a lesson there.

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The three most important letters in college athletics right now are NIL. The name, image and likeness game is a sport-within-all-the-sports that is already changing the very nature of amateur athletics and will continue to do so in ways both foreseen and unforeseen.

Another three-letter combination, at least for athletic administrators, that is nearly as important and will remain so is ROI. When it comes to coaches, particularly those in the high-profile and highly profitable sports of football and men’s basketball, getting a good return on investment can be the difference between a healthy athletics program and a perennial zombie.

Penn State made a substantial investment in James Franklin and, in turn, the football program last year, extending the head coach’s contract to one that runs through 2031. What follows is a closer look at what sort of return Franklin is offering on that investment, both in comparison to his peers and relative to the quality of teams with whom he is competing against those peers.

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Now that Penn State has wrapped up finals week, and the Nittany Lions can turn their (full) attention to the exam awaiting them in Pasadena, it seems a good a time as any to reflect on the lessons learned from two of the youngest Lions, Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen.

These two dynamic running backs have injected life into what had for the last few seasons been a mostly comatose Penn State rushing attack this fall, leading to a 69% increase in rushing yards per game from 2021, and in doing so provided some teachable moments on subjects including:

Expectations

Singleton was the five-star stud of the Class of 2022, the 27^th overall player in the group and the top running back prospect according to the On3 consensus rankings. From the moment he committed, he had Penn State fans as excited as anyone not named Drew Allar, and when you watched some of his tape, that second name didn’t even matter. Allen, on the other hand, had some impressive bona fides of his own (the 136^th overall prospect and No. 8 RB) but not the sizzle, even as reports of him impressing in preseason camp trickled into the collective consciousness.

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Back in the day, when proponents of various sub-tier bowl games (the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl was always a personal favorite) emphasized the virtues of playing in such games, one of the common themes they turned to again and again was the extra practices a team would receive leading up to the bowl game, a not-insignificant perk given the NCAA’s usual restrictions on offseason team gatherings.

The thought process went like this: Whether you win the game or not, you get a chance to get some younger players valuable practice reps and get a longer look at them, while your veteran players log some mental reps and get ready for that evening’s steak buffet/arcade tour/beach party. Collectively, players and coaches (including any just-hired coaches) get a theoretical leg up on next season.

In present day, that particular benefit seems of less value each year. Why? Because the team that is prepping for a bowl game in December will scarcely resemble the team that gathers for preseason camp the following August.

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Timing is everything — on the football field, where a blitz pickup by a running back can mean the difference between a long touchdown pass and a concussed quarterback, or in life, where the person you go on to spend 75 years with might not have given you a second glance at the bar if she hadn’t just been dumped by her boyfriend.

Penn State’s timing, while not exactly ideal in the fourth quarter against Ohio State this fall, could wind up being not that bad at all in future seasons — placing them “On The List” instead of arguing with the CFP bouncer outside the velvet ropes. In other words, yes, it would have been nice for the Nittany Lions if the decision to expand the playoff field from four teams to 12 had taken effect this month instead of 2024, as they would have been comfortably in the field.

As it stands, their chances of securing a spot in the top 12 going forward seem as good as most for several reasons, though the line will likely remain quite slim and subject to movement.

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