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Introduction

“I have lived seven lifetimes tonight.” – Me

Though my fingers will clack clack away for a dozen or so paragraphs, I don’t really have words for what happened on the first day of September in the year 2022 A.D. (or C.E. or whatever we’re doing these days). I do know this, though: all Penn State fans aged exponentially this week, lower our life expectancy at least ten years. Talk about a rollercoaster. We went from Sean Clifford starting poorly, to being really good, to leaving for Drew Allar, to coming back and being awful, to leading one of the most impressive drives this side of Iowa City in 2017. We watched a Purdue receiver who had 500 yards in 3 seasons at Buffalo and Iowa roast the “vaunted” Penn State secondary for 153 yards and a touchdown. The Penn State defense looked suspect on some drives but came up huge in the last two Purdue possessions to give the Nittany Lions a chance and lock up the win, respectively. The run game had 77 yards in the first half, which was on pace for “pretty good,” only to finish with 98. We’ll do some fun stat-y stuff below, but there is absolutely zero that can be taken away from this game in terms of trends. This game was like the AMC stock of college football.

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Ever procrastinate? Sure you have. You’ve put stuff off that probably should have been done today, and sometimes, you get a lucky break along the way—the boss decides he doesn’t need that presentation from you for another week, or your wife decides she wants to get a different tile for that bathroom renovation you’ve been putting off. So you feel justified in procrastinating. But you’re really not.

For the first, oh, 56 minutes of Penn State’s opener at Purdue, a disaster scenario was shaping up for the Nittany Lions. Sean Clifford was playing like, well, Sean Clifford, lifting the Nittany Lions to a healthy lead early then helping the Boilers get right back in it with a flurry of wildly inaccurate passing in the second half. The disaster part is that, when Clifford missed a series while getting an IV, Drew Allar came in the game and, in just four passes, stole the hearts of every Penn State fan and gave us an oh-so-brief but oh-so-tantalizing glimpse of what could be. Those four passes resulted in two completions, a drop, and a wobbly (but fast-moving) duck that had no chance, but damn it, the kid looked the part. Never mind the accuracy and the velocity, but he showed a true pocket presence—eyes downfield, feet moving but never retreating—that a certain other quarterback has shown for only slivers of a six-year career.

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• Gus Johnson: “That’s one of the best drives, Joel Klatt, that I’ve ever seen!” Gus…buddy…look…you’re excited; I’m excited; we’re all excited, OK? But, please, a little perspective. You do realize there’s a drive called THE DRIVE, right? Right?

• Good lord, where to start? Scrolling back and re-reading our in-game Twitter feed (before the phone died…thanks Jobs), we were pretty damn grouchy, so why don’t we flip the script and shovel down our ice cream before we hold our nose and force-swallow that pile of lima beans so Mom lets us leave the table and go to bed.

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Introduction

Finally, the season is upon us! Bring on the first college football Saturday Thursday!

Much like last year, the Big Ten schedule makers left Penn State no room for non-conference creampuff foreplay as the Nittany Lions are forced to go in raw against another winning Big Ten West foe to get things started. And much like last year, one of the largest preseason questions marks looming over Penn State’s 2022 fortunes is the potential potency of the offense.

Rightly or wrongly, for better or worse, most of the uncertainty falls on the shoulders of QB1 Sean Clifford.

Clifford’s QB counterpart in the season opener is Purdue’s Aidan O’Connell – an unheralded walk-on and one time 8^th string QB on the Boilermakers depth chart (seriously, that isn’t a joke. He was.) who somehow morphed into an All-Big Ten thrower. Statistically speaking, O’Connell ranked 2^nd or 3^rd in most major passing categories last year, only trailing behind Ohio State QB/G Wagon driver CJ Stroud, a Heisman finalist.

Now that we’ve set both QBs up, let’s compared the two, shall we?

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This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you to be patient with Penn State’s dynamic young running backs, that true freshmen need to cook slowly, more like a brisket than a burger, and that James Franklin, not unlike many coaches, has shown a consistent tendency to be more comfortable with veterans than upstart rookies.

In other words, tell you to get excited about Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, but not too excited.

Well, considering the way Penn State’s running game looked last season, you should take any reasons to be excited you can get.

We all know the numbers were bad (118^th of 130 FBS teams in rushing yards per game), the optics were bad (how many times did the Nittany Lions turn a 2^nd-and-feet into a punt or turnover on downs?) and the harmony was bad (when the line blocked, the backs didn’t hit the holes hard; when they ran with purpose, the blocking broke down). But when you go back and look at what frequently cost the Nittany Lions in their six losses last season, it was the effect the running game—or lack of running game—had on the rest of the team that made for so many disappointing Saturday evenings.

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Once a Promising Young Runner Brimming with Upside, the Nittany Lions Presumed Starter to Start the Year Has to Sharpen Several Aspects of his Game to STAY the Starter at the End of the Year

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Seems like several lifetimes ago by now, but remember that Keyvone Lee earned PFF grades of 75+ in both rushing and receiving in 2020. Purdue’s Zander Horvath is the only other B1G RB who can make that same boast; he’s playing for the Chargers now.

Both players averaged 4.9 yards/carry that year.

In 2021, Lee averaged…4.9 yards/carry. Not a step back, but not the step forward expected after what he did in his first season in blue and white.

Suddenly there are a couple of talented freshmen (Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen) ready to do to Lee what he did to Noah Cain. The good news – for Keyvone – is he 100% has the tools to headline a RB room and ward off four- and five-star teammates from snatching away carries.

Let’s break down what he has to do to avoid transferring and fading from our collective memory while exhausting his eligibility at some forgettable C-USA or Sun Belt football “farm upstate.”

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The casual Nittany Lion fan will be forgiven if he has to reach for the team roster more often than usual this September to match jersey numbers with names along Penn State’s defensive line.

If the Nittany Lions are lucky, at least a couple of those numbers will become quite familiar to opposing coaches who have to scout the Penn State defense.

Just about every position group is breaking in one or two new faces this fall, as is commonplace in this transfer-happy era of college football, but defensive line coach John Scott’s collection of ends and tackles takes the turnover to another level.

Gone are Arnold Ebiketie, Derrick Tangelo and sometimes-linebacker Jesse Luketa. Back from injury are Adisa Isaac and P.J. Mustipher. Back from some other form of exile is Hakeem Beamon. In from the Maryland Terrapins is Chop Robinson, and in from the high school ranks are Dani Dennis Sutton, Zane Durant and Kaleb Artis (alas, Ken Talley, we knew thee not that well). And then there are returnees like Nick Tarburton, Smith Vilbert, Coziah Izzard and Dvon Ellies.

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