In less than a week, James Franklin’s perspective toward the Nittany Lions’ quarterback room hadn’t changed.
Welcoming back a presumed starter in fifth-year senior Sean Clifford, without experienced depth to any degree in third-year quarterback Ta’Quan Roberson and January enrollee Christian Veilleux running second- and third-string, respectively, Penn State’s 2021 offseason is going to be filled with uncertainty.
“I don't think you're ever comfortable at the quarterback position until those guys have gotten game reps,” Franklin told reporters Friday night following the program’s second scrimmage open to the public at Beaver Stadium. “The practice reps are critical and very, very important, but having guys that don't have game reps and haven't played critical game reps at significant moments, you're never completely comfortable because you never know how guys are going to react when they get in there."
Crucially, Franklin continued, it also must be filled with development.
"The work that those guys do between now and game one is going to be important, and we'd like for that gap to be closed between our ones and our twos.”
Losing two quarterbacks to transfer in Will Levis and Micah Bowens, adding one through an early enrollment in Veilleux, and transitioning from quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca to Mike Yurcich in the same roles, the fundamental circumstances for the Nittany Lions aren't unfamiliar at this point.
Without an obvious challenger for the starting job, Clifford will attempt to bounce back from a brutally tough second season at the helm. And though Levis ascended into the starting position for the Nittany Lions’ week four loss to Iowa last season, it was a short-lived attempt for the program to steady itself at the position, quickly returning to Clifford after a short-circuited comeback attempt at Nebraska and a deep first-half hole against the Hawkeyes.
As Franklin would go on to explain at length Friday evening, though, the welcomed change from a year ago at the same time will take place at the position over the coming weeks and months. Finally able to get back to the routine of countless repetitions for the quarterbacks and their receiving targets that take place between the end of spring practices and the start of preseason camp in late July, the work is being counted upon by the program to produce improvement at the position from the top-down.
“I’ve been pleased with Sean this spring, and I've been pleased with Ta'Quan and Christian as well,” Franklin said. “Between now and spring, there's a lot that needs to get worked on. But I think that's one of the probably exciting things at the quarterback position, you can work on that.”
From the perspective of Clifford and the program's other quarterbacks heading into the offseason months, an optimism is attached to that prospect.
Welcoming the possibility of improvement and development, with a strategy for how to most efficiently make those changes, Clifford told reporters a week prior just how relatively early in the process the room was and, maybe more important, what could take place with a summer's worth of work still ahead.
"I'd love to say that I've seen the full potential (of this offense) but we install new stuff all the time. I don't think I've seen the full potential yet," Clifford said. "There's so much more that we can grow on... We're playing with tempo now, we'll throw it deep, we'll slow it down, we'll be under center. We just do so much. The spectrum is so wide and it's just so exciting for me as a quarterback to be able to grow with a coach who just kind of has everything. He has every package, so it's really exciting for me. He's putting a lot of trust in me so far, and I'm just going to continue to work hard for him so that way I can show him that I can handle whatever he throws at me."
Though the work that took place between Yurcich and the quarterbacks' room, as well as the padded practices that provided physical, defensive looks that can only be approximated by game action will be sidelined until preseason camp, Franklin’s comments are effectively a stage-setter.
Still able to meet between the players and Yurcich under time limitations per NCAA offseason rules, the Nittany Lions’ passing game development will also be served by a variety of other activities both on the field and off.
“You can throw routes on air all summer. You can do one-on-ones against the DBs all summer. You can do player-lead seven-on-sevens all summer,” Franklin said. “You can go back on defense and watch all of our film from last year and watch all spring, and review that. Our offensive guys and the quarterbacks can go back and watch all of Texas's film last year and our film from last year and learn from those things.
“So there's a lot that can be done that's player-lead and player-driven between now and training camp and the quarterbacks, as well as everybody (else), needs to do that.”
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