Sunday Friday Column: Lions Get Thrilling Win That Brightens Present…At Possible Expense of Future

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.

If Penn State had lost this game—and it very nearly did so—Clifford’s pick six would have likely been a major reason why, and the calls for Allar to supplant him as the starter would have been deafening. As it stands now, the volume of those calls will likely register between a thick whisper and a raised voice, depending on the performances of Clifford and the team moving forward.

Now, two important points: 1. James Franklin doesn’t give a you-know-what about the opinions of fans (at least as far as lineup decisions are concerned), and if he does indeed make the decision to go with the big freshman at any point this season, it’ll be because he and his staff believe it is truly the best for the team. 2. Supplanting the oldest starting QB in team history for an 18-year-old rookie would be a ballsy call no matter how you view it, and it would likely lower the floor of the offense, at least for the first few games, even if it raised its ceiling significantly.

As you watched this offense continue to struggle to run the ball, though, even with more dynamic ball carriers in Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, and you watched the defense allow a Purdue offense with no evident superstars go up and down the field, there was this nagging sense that this Penn State team, in its current form, is not bound for greatness. If Clifford were at the helm of a legitimate championship contending squad, one that was just a spark at QB away, it would be one thing. But, gritty though this win was, and as tantalizing as the big plays that led to the win were (Hello, Mitch Tinsley. Hello again, Brenton Strange and KeAndre Lambert-Smith) this game felt like a harbinger of inconsistency and struggle ahead.

So why not get Allar started now, and have him take his lumps—and he certainly will take them behind a retooled offensive line that was generally better in pass protection but not immune to random and ugly breakdowns Thursday—but get him the reps he’ll need to develop? At running back, the Nittany Lions can continue to mix veterans Keyvone Lee and Devyn Ford with Singleton and Allen, allowing them to live in both the present and the future at that position, but quarterback is a different story. An arm like Allar’s can open up any offense, and this one has talented pass-catchers (even if they, um, didn’t catch many passes that hit their hands on this night) who could take advantage of throws that few other quarterbacks at this level can make. Plus, Allar doesn’t have any of the scar tissue that is still clinging to Clifford every time he drops back and sees a less-than-perfect pocket. If you know you’re not going to throw away a legit shot at a championship, you can live with the occasional rookie misreads and mistakes, knowing that they’re the price to pay for the dimes you’re getting now and the next few seasons.

The good part about Thursday was that the Nittany Lions won, overcoming some long stretches of pedestrian play and getting the sort of come-from-behind win—against an improving and legit Purdue team—that fuels the confidence they’ll need in the months ahead. The bad part is that by doing so, and by having Clifford come up biggest when it mattered most, they will be able to justify procrastinating on the difficult but possibly necessary decision to make a big change at the game’s most important position, and the 2022 team will be stuck in the perplexing purgatory we saw for almost the entire night and almost all of the last two years.