What’s Penn State’s quarterback situation behind Sean Clifford? Questions remain
The most important position on the football field might also be the one with the biggest question mark for Penn State in 2021.
Redshirt senior Sean Clifford is the clear starter at quarterback heading into the season, but isn’t without warts. He struggled in 2020 after a good first year as a starter in 2019 and will need to regain his form from his redshirt sophomore year.
Behind him lie even bigger question marks. Redshirt sophomore Ta’Quan Roberson and true freshman Christian Veilleux — who enrolled in January — haven’t played a meaningful snap or thrown a meaningful pass in a college football game. In fact, the only college game action belongs to Roberson, who has thrown one career pass, which came in 2019 in a 27-6 win over Rutgers in the game’s waning moments.
Quarterbacks always have a large impact on how a season goes, but no other position comes close for Penn State this season because of the equally dispersed uncertainty among the team’s three scholarship signal callers.
The precariousness starts at the top with Clifford who has flashed the ability to lead the team to a New Year’s Six bowl game like he did two years ago, but needs to work to become that player again.
The redshirt senior knows he wasn’t the player he wanted to be in 2020, but he’s moved on and is ready to prove he can be a high-level quarterback this season.
“Last year I didn’t play up to my expectations,” Clifford said at Penn State Media Day on Saturday. “I learned from that and that’s how life goes. You’ve gotta move on. When adversity sets in there’s gonna be things that happen. I’m not going to deny what happened last season, but I’m also not gonna harp on it. This is 2021, guys. I’m here to get the job done, we’re here to win games. And that’s the only thing on my mind right now. I’m a very confident quarterback with a very confident football team.”
Clifford’s confidence exuded as he talked about the season, with the air of a quarterback who knows he’s going to take a step forward under new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich.
Yurcich sees the confidence, too, and believes it gives the redshirt senior the type of upside any coordinator would want in a signal caller. He’s taken on the task of improving Clifford’s play and reaching the ceiling he sees as a possibility by allowing him to find failure in the lead-up to the season.
“Any quarterback that has his demeanor and attitude and willingness to learn and understands every day that there’s something more to attain, his ceiling is very high,” Yurcich said. “I think he can get a lot better. So, that’s my job to help him along and to guide him and to give him the information that he needs and to continue to press upon the things that he has to improve upon and apply pressure where it needs to be in practice. Give him difficult looks, allow him to fail and figure it out and then continue to build his confidence up. I think that’s the process of learning.”
Even if Clifford finds his footing and succeeds, there is still plenty of uncertainty in the rest of the room. The two backup scholarship quarterbacks’ lack of experience will only be an issue if they’re forced to see the field this season, but that remains a distinct possibility given how often Clifford lays his body on the line as a runner.
If Roberson or Veilleux is called upon, that could spell trouble for the Nittany Lions. Both have the talent to succeed — Roberson with the accuracy and touch to loft balls over linebackers and hit short passes and Veilleux with the arm strength and mobility to create big plays — but their lack of experience is evident, even in practice, although it is improving.
“They both have the talent necessary,” Yurcich said. “Right now, the play, typical of young quarterbacks, is just inconsistent but trending in the right direction, there’s improvement there.”
The new offensive coordinator said progress needs to be made, and there has been some, but he isn’t convinced there will be an even trajectory for either quarterback — and that may be a good thing.
Progression in football is rarely linear. Players improve and get worse at a whim and can have a breakout season without much warning.
Former BYU QB Zach Wilson was a non-factor in the 2021 NFL Draft conversation in August of 2020, and within eight months he was taken No. 2 overall. It’s not impossible that Roberson or Veilleux — or even Clifford — could take an unforeseen massive step forward this season, something Yurcich wouldn’t rule out.
“I’m not big into putting any labels on guys because I’ve seen guys change dramatically,” Yurcich said. “Some guys it’s different, some guys it’s the initial six months, some guys it’s 12 months, some guys that second year it clicks. ... You’ve got to coach them all and try to bring out their best attributes and try to make sure that you’re trying to optimize their ability to make plays and do what they do best and to help them be tougher, help them be better thinkers, clearer thinkers. I think those are all the challenges from each quarterback that plays the game of football.”
While it would be a possibility for one of the three quarterbacks to take the unforeseen jump forward in ability, that step is just that — unforeseeable.
Instead, Yurcich will have to find an answer at the position and only has one legitimate option given the lack of experience between the two players set to back up the team’s third-year starter.
Clifford, imbued with the confidence of a quarterback who knows something the outside world doesn’t about the offense, will have to be the answer.
