Coming down homestretch of a long college career, Penn State QB Sean Clifford ready for trip to Big House

Sean Clifford has been in college so long that he committed to sign with Penn State in July 2015, the day before he turned 17. He’s now 24.

That’s seven years on the calendar, the difference between adolescence and manhood in real life.

That’s three Alabama Heisman winners and two Clemson national championships ago.

That’s so long ago that as a Nittany Lions freshman, Clifford shared a locker room with Saquon Barkley, who has nearly 1,000 rushes and receptions in five seasons with the New York Giants.

Clifford has been at Penn State so long that it feels as if he may never say, “So long.”

We live in an age of veteran college quarterbacks. Minnesota’s Tanner Morgan, a year older than Clifford, is as bald as Albert Pujols. Sam Hartman, a fifth-year junior at Wake Forest, has another season of eligibility. Clifford, Morgan and Hartman have taken advantage of the extra year that the NCAA granted everyone in the wake of the pandemic season of 2020. They could have tried their luck with the NFL or they could continue to play and get better. From that viewpoint, it’s not a hard decision.

Clifford will make his 39^th start as a Nittany Lion on Saturday, when No. 10 Penn State (5-0 overall, 2-0 in the Big Ten) plays at No. 5 Michigan (6-0, 3-0). Clifford is 3-2 as a Nittany Lion vs. the Wolverines, 2-1 as a starter. In his career, Clifford has won the starting job, lost the starting job, then won it back again. He has gotten hurt. He led Penn State to an 11-2 record in 2019, and got benched the next season as the Nittany Lions started 0-5.

Clifford has thrived, but most of all Clifford has survived. He hasn’t taken Penn State where its fans believe Penn State should be. They complain about him, in the fashion of entitled fans everywhere. Clifford talks as if he doesn’t even hear it anymore. This week, as he addressed a group of writers about playing in the Big House, he delivered every answer with a side order of maturity.

“In my six years of playing for this university, I’m extremely excited to be able to play in this game,” Clifford said. “You only get so many on this type of stage and you try to enjoy it.”

Maybe Clifford sees the approaching exit ramp. Maybe he just sounds older because he is older. Clifford is older than Jalen Hurts, the quarterback of the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles, older than Trevor Lawrence and Davis Mills, also NFL starters.

Experience is more important than ever in college football. In a time when nearly half the starting quarterbacks in the FBS are transfers, in an age when the pandemic robbed every player of a year of development, knowing what to do and how to do it brings a significant advantage. Listen to Clifford discuss last week, when the Nittany Lions didn’t play a game.

“I think Coach (James) Franklin hit the nail on the head when he said, ‘It’s a bye week, not an off week.’ It’s an opportunity not to have an opponent so that we can just focus on ourselves,” Clifford said.

He talked about ironing out the kinks on his drop, on a certain throw.

“Making sure you are hitting the things you need to hit and not focusing on any excess. … Working smarter, not harder,” Clifford said. “Looking at the things that matter a little more than in the past. We worked really smart. We also worked hard and got a lot out of it.”

Clifford also talked about setting football aside last week, about locking football away for a day and a half, about returning to State College feeling refreshed.

“I actually got to go to the pumpkin patch, which was nice,” he said. “Being able to just enjoy time as an everyday person because that’s who we are. We might be football players, but we also like to enjoy things outside of football as well.”

If he stays healthy over the second half of the season, Clifford will surpass his predecessor, Trace McSorley, and own pretty much every Penn State passing record you can own. He already leads in career completion percentage (60.4). In his three starts against Michigan, he has yet to throw an interception.

Over the next three weeks, Clifford will lead Penn State against Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio State. They are the toughest opponents on the Nittany Lions’ schedule, and they come one after the other.

“We work extremely hard to play in games like this and to play at a high level,” Clifford said.

He is coming down the homestretch of a long college football career. Clifford sounds as if he is well aware of it.