Penn State football roundtable: Which predictions did we whiff on for the 2021 season?

The best part of the Penn State football preseason is making predictions about the team’s record, who will step up, and much more.

It’s not as fun, however, to look back at what we got wrong.

But, it is a worthwhile exercise as we continue to unpack the whys and hows that led the Nittany Lions to a disappointing 7-6 finish following an Outback Bowl loss to Arkansas by a 24-10 count.

In the latest Blue-White Illustrated roundtable, senior editor Nate Bauer and reporters Greg Pickel and David Eckert pick the one pick they got wrong and dissect why it turned out the way that it did.

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Now, onto our mea culpas.

BWI roundtable: Which 2021 Penn State prediction did you whiff on, and why?

Pickel:

I was fortunate enough to join the BWI team in July. However, the mega preseason magazine was already out the door, which means I didn’t have to make a Penn State season record prediction if I didn’t want to.

Ever the prognosticator, however, I couldn’t help myself.

In the August Blue-White Illustrated magazine edition, the Last Word column reads in part: “No one will remember a 10-2 prediction for a 7-5 season, but look out if a 6-6 pick precedes an 11-1 record.”

That was as wrong as my record prediction was.

Key injuries to Sean Clifford and P.J. Mustipher were not built into the thought process. An overinflation of what the Penn State offense would look like under Mike Yurcich certainly was, however. So, too, was a belief that there would be some semblance of a running game. There wasn’t.

Combine all of that with a still hard-to-believe loss to Illinois and a shorthanded squad in the Outback Bowl, and well, that’s a good way for a 10-2 pick to end with a 7-6 result.

Bauer:

I had Penn State going 10-2. That could probably be the end of the segment, but I’ll go on.

In that scenario, I had Michigan and Michigan State as being likely wins. I had at Ohio State as a likely loss. I wasn’t sure about Iowa, but figured the Hawkeyes on the road could be one of those two predicted losses.

Now, and to my great delight, I did go out on a limb and predict an unbeaten record for Penn State through September – in July – which proved correct.

What I don’t know how to square, to this day, is exactly how much of Penn State’s season went sideways specifically due to Sean Clifford’s injury. Certainly, I thought then and think now that it’s substantial. Penn State was off to a solid start in Iowa City, on top of its 5-0 record and No. 4 ranking, and couldn’t really ever recover after he got hurt.

It was, I think we could have all agreed coming into the year and especially in hindsight, the one position that the program couldn’t sustain any type of injury. And though Clifford wouldn’t actually miss a game because of it, the impact on his performance against Illinois was clear.

The counterargument comes in the next week, though.

Penn State couldn’t break its season-long struggle producing points, but at Ohio State, against one of the best teams in the country, the Nittany Lions had a solid offensive performance. And Clifford was at the front of it.

So when looking back on how and where my 10-2 went so far off the rails, it’s not as simple as excusing the lack of development for the back half of the season offensively on his injury.

For that assumption, I missed the mark.

Eckert:

I thought one of Penn State’s strengths would be its running back room and that the Nittany Lions would have an above-average run game at the very least.

I know, I know. Yikes.

The way Penn State ran the ball to close out the 2020 season, it just seemed natural that it would take the next step. They were getting Noah Cain back. They were adding a very experienced veteran in John Lovett.

Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why. The offensive line wasn’t good enough. The running backs didn’t progress. Lovett’s addition didn’t really add all that much. It was just an overall system failure rather than one singular problem.