This past weekend, Penn State got absolutely stomped by Michigan 41-17. In what was supposed to be a hard fought matchup between two top 10 teams, the Nittany Lions looked atrocious and couldn’t move the ball on offense or stop the run. 

What this loss really comes down to is head coach James Franklin. Since the conclusion of the 2016 season, Franklin is now 0-10 against top 10 teams. That is unfathomably bad. It boggles the mind how after a terrible loss he takes no accountability and continues to say “let’s go 1-0 this week.”

His team had NOTHING this week. Sean Clifford, who I’ll get to in a bit, was horrendous. The run game, which was the bread and butter of this offense, was barely even used. I’m not sure if this is Mike Yurcich’s call or Franklin’s, but whenever Penn State is facing adversity, someone decides to just start chucking the ball up with Clifford. The team’s best players on offense are running backs. STICK TO THE RUN. 

The defense was putrid. Missed tackles had been this team’s Achilles heel all year long, and it got exposed against Michigan. Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards ran all over this team. One of my keys to this game was to stop the run and let J.J. McCarthy beat you. That didn’t happen at all. It was run, run, run for the Wolverines. Also, why isn’t Abdul Carter in for every snap? He’s one of the best defensive players the team has. He needs to get as many snaps as possible. I don’t care if he’s a freshman. Carter voiced his displeasure with some of his liked tweets and I completely agree with him. I get that Manny Diaz likes a rotation, but you have to leave your best guys on the field.

Here it is, what we’ve all been waiting for. The Sean Clifford portion of this article. That game should be the last we see of the sixth-year senior. He was horrible. He had a nice 62-yard run, but outside of that he couldn’t get the offense moving at all. We’ve seen Clifford’s ceiling. The best he’ll be is a game manager that won’t lose you the game. He had his best drive ever at Purdue and I don’t think we’ll ever see it again. This Penn State team has a STUD in waiting with Drew Allar. LET THE KID PLAY! There’s no reason to not give him valuable experience as a starter. If Allar plays every week, this team goes 10-2 easily. If Clifford is the quarterback, who knows. We could see another monumental collapse like last season.