Penn State Has 'Legitimate' Playoff Hopes, Mike Golic Jr. Says
Before the Rose Bowl, football analyst Mike Golic Jr. predicted that a Penn State win would "absolutely be the beginning of increasing and growing those expectations heading into 2023." So Penn State defeated Utah 35-21, finished 11-2 and officially launched its campaign to contend for the 2023 College Football Playoff. So where does Golic see the Lions now?
"I would say it's one of the teams that's got legitimate College Football Playoff hopes...," he said.
In a recent interview, the former Notre Dame lineman, current college football analyst and host of DraftKings' GoJo podcast scouted Penn State, quarterback Drew Allar and coach James Franklin's playoff chances. Golic also highlighted the player he's looking forward to seeing most this season (who isn't a running back or wears No. 11).
Question: So the last time we spoke in December, you mentioned heightened expectations if Penn State were to win the Rose Bowl. Where would you set those expectations now?
Mike Golic Jr.: If you’re looking at the Big Ten right now, it feels an awful lot like a three-team race, so you’re right firmly in the race with Michigan and Ohio State. I would say it's one of the teams that’s got legitimate College Football Playoff hopes and potential with your roster right now and are walking into this season incredibly hopeful. For Penn State fans it’s interesting. I remember getting to call the Penn State-Minnesota game last year because I think the calls for Drew Allar were pretty high and pretty substantial. So now it’s, alright, you’ve gotten rid of Sean Clifford and that rollercoaster experience of a good veteran college football quarterback who was never going to give you the highest ceiling and was going to be a little bit inconsistent. And now you’re walking in with a guy who’s extremely talented but looking around at the rest of this roster going, if [Allar] hits, we have something here, and that’s where the ceiling can come into play.
Q: Drew Allar has a high ceiling, but what's his floor? Where should fans begin with Allar?
Golic: I have vivid memories of being in Steelers rookie camp [in 2013], and Landry Jones was a fourth-round pick and Mike Tomlin said, 'Listen man, hand the ball off an don’t turn this thing over." As funny and cliché as that is, with the backfield Penn State has with [Kaytron] Allen and [Nicholas] Singleton, you’ve got a floor built in right there. Obviously your left tackle [Olu Fashanu] is going to be the selling point, but if the rest of the offensive line also meets that standard, you’ve got a run game that’s automatically going to keep you in games. You’ve got home-run threats coming out of your backfield. In 90 percent of football you might have a guy who can get you yards, but you don’t have home-run hitters like the guys Penn State has in the backfield. With that as a floor, you’ve got to keep the ball out of the other team’s hands as the basis of this. It’s the most cliched football advice ever, but if your ceiling is one thing, I want you certainly to be aggressive with the tools you’ve got. But I think with where this team’s at, especially early on, that’s got to be the charge. We have the stuff around to insulate you and grow into this thing. It doesn’t have to be coming out guns blazing right away.
Q: What makes Drew Allar a protege?
Golic: I mean size, talent, all those things that you’re looking for. With Sean Clifford, it kind of felt like the same sentiment as a guy I played with [at Notre Dame], Tommy Rees, who didn’t necessarily look like the big-time college quarterback you had in your mind. And when you’ve got 6-5, 240 sitting behind him with all of those abilities it’s like yeah, who wouldn’t be tantalized by that? You had enough time with Sean Clifford to know and go through that experience. You feel like you knew what the ceiling was on that. No one likes feeling capped right now. There’s a beauty in the hope that I’m sure Penn State fans feel in, alright, now we get to see how high this thing can fly. All those people contribute to what people might think and what people might even project onto the player that have nothing to do with it.
Q: What do you want to see from Penn State's offense?
Golic: You can do some things formation-wise that can give [Allar] information, like two-back sets, and the bigger sets we saw last year when you get multiple tight ends on the field at once. All those things can be an aid to the quarterback. With a young guy you want to build confidence, you want to see the ball go through the basket a little bit. There are going to be fewer moments in the game where Drew is going to be able to problem-solve for you the way Sean was. There was a distinct moment in one game, in the high red zone, where Sean used the cadence, saw what the defense was doing — and it was minuscule, it was a safety turning his hips and starting to bail out a little bit — and he change the protection to make sure he was protected, threw a strike where the safety was replacing and he nailed it. Those are the kinds of results you only get with time reps, and Drew’s not going to have those. So what are you going to do as a coach? You’re going to have to build in a lot of those solutions.
Q: Defensively, does linebacker Abdul Carter remind you of anyone?
Golic: For Penn State fans, especially given the number he wears [11], it probably reminds them of a certain someone. I’m not going to do that to the kid, but it’s also hard not to get some of that. He’s incredibly fluid and seemed so sure of himself, even as such a young player, to go out and produce like that. The ability popped right away. You see it on field, and that’s saying something on that defense. Abdul Carter, he pops. He looked special when you saw him out there initially, and now especially with what [defensive coordinator] Manny [Diaz] likes to do on defense, there are so many ways you can involve him, get him going toward the quarterback and really crack this thing open.
Q: How long before Manny Diaz becomes a head coach again?
Golic: Knowing college football, I would say probably not that long, especially if you go through this season and you get the kind of performance people are expecting. We know college football at this point churns through bodies left and right, especially in the coaching ranks. These guys are all competitors. Manny’s been a head coach before, the exit was notably uncomfortable for everyone to watch and I’m sure for him to experience, leaving Miami. I can’t imagine that’s how he wants to leave his head coaching tenure in college football, so I would imagine it’s sooner than later if things go right. It’s one of the unfortunate byproducts of having a team with high expectations that achieves them.
Q: Who on this Penn State roster are you looking forward to seeing more of this season?
Golic: It’s hard to ignore some of the physical ability of [tight end] Theo Johnson. The position that popped the most to me last year was tight end, and that’s a testament to Brenton Strange and what he did. As far as a two-way tight end, the guy who can be an effective blocker and pass catcher for you, he was dynamic. So I am curious to see if Theo and that tight end room pick up the slack there because I thought quietly, especially with the way they wanted to play with getting multiple tight ends on the field at once, that’s going to be a pretty important position for everyone involved. To that add Tyler Warren, who did a pretty good job when asked as a blocker last year. Those guys are important, especially with a young quarterback factored into it. But obviously my eyes are always going to go back to Olu Fashanu. Watching him develop over the course of a season, the last time I felt this way about a guy — and they’re not the same player and it’s not for the same reason — it was Penei Sewell. You could see him put together different things as the weeks went on, things got a little bit cleaner and you started seeing him figure out more. They’re so talented and gifted that it’s just having enough reps to be able to hone certain skills: the timing on your sets, little minute technique things that they’re going to have to hone that are really special to watch. It speaks to the kind of ceiling that guy has. Outside of my love for big boys everywhere, it’s the tight end room I’ll be watching.
Q: What does Penn State need to do to position itself for the playoff this season?
Golic: Beating Michigan and Ohio State is a good start. You can do things the easy way and go out and win your conference. You don’t want to leave it in the hands, especially this year, of a playoff field that feels a little more crowded. You’ve got a ton of talent in the Pac-12 right now, so who knows how that would shake out? Maybe they don’t cannibalize each other a ton and you get a Washington and a USC that are both incredibly capable of playing a barnburner in the Pac-12 championship game, and all of the sudden you think about them being a two-team conference. The SEC is always a risk of being a two-team conference. Florida State seems like they might be ready to challenge Clemson [in the ACC], so this doesn’t seem like the year where you want to leave it up to chance. And so I really think you’re going to have to take care of business.
The good news is, the teams that everyone’s talking about ahead of you in the College Football Playoff are both going to be on the schedule. In my mind you’ve at least got to split those two, and it can’t be like the Michigan game last year. College football’s playoff right now on in the four-team format has very few concrete commandments. One of them is you can’t get blown out. Outside of winning them all, you’ve got to split with Ohio State and Michigan and preferably both are close. If you’re going to lose one, preferably it would be the earlier one on the road against Ohio State.
Q: How close are Penn State and James Franklin to winning a national championship?
Golic: If Michigan has taught us anything the last couple of years, there’s still a pretty big gap. And I think that would be true for Penn State. We’ve seen this plenty with the teams that get there once, with having to deal with the totally different schedule that comes with the playoff. There’s those limitations and there’s just the depth in your roster and size in certain areas. That’s really one of my biggest concerns: size up front. Yeah, [the Lions] have guys who can get after it on defense. We know Manny schematically is going to give you an advantage. He does some things that are really cool. But when push comes to shove, we see in the playoffs especially that you’ve got to have the boys up front who can really move people and push people around. And on the other side, is Penn State going to be capable of stopping that? But getting proximity to the prize is always what I say the goal is. You’ve got to get into the dance and then after that see what happens, i.e. TCU from last year. Penn State is as close as anybody that’s been on the outside looking in.
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