Penn State's Offense is 'Battling the Clock'

Penn State football players wore pads Wednesday for the first time since the Cotton Bowl, an experience even kicker Jordan Stout said "was sweet."

The Lions didn't linger too long over the moment, though, particularly quarterback Sean Clifford and his teammates on offense. They have three weeks to get control of their new system before the season opener against Indiana, making every practice repetition matter even more.

As a result, Clifford wouldn't even entertain a question about who Penn State plays at home in Week 2.

"I’m going to be honest with you," Clifford said. "I didn't even know we had Ohio State in Week 2. All I care about is Indiana right now. And that's pretty much my only comment on that."

Clifford's primary concern is time: Will he have enough with his offense to feel confident going live against the Hoosiers on Oct. 24? Like everyone else on offense, Clifford said that coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca led productive video meetings during the extended offseason, and their personal conversations grew deeper since they first met at the Cotton Bowl.

But for all the videos of their routes his receivers texted this spring, and for all the plays he diagrammed on his home dry-erase board, Clifford wants as many reps as possible to develop a second-nature feel for Ciarrocca's offense.

That will be his primary focus for the next three weeks.

"We're battling the clock," said Clifford, who kept his arm sharp by throwing to brother Liam at home this spring. "We don't have much time, and we haven't had the spring and the summer to develop the way that we want. So obviously I have trust, and I've seen it on the field, in how hard everybody's been working away from the facility. But football is a team game, and you need to get everybody together, and the chemistry needs to be there. So we just need to keep grinding out these details day in day out."

Ciarrocca, evidently, is a detail-driven coach. Clifford and receiver Jahan Dotson said that if someone is imprecise, Ciarrocca takes swift notice. "Then he's going to get on your ass," Clifford said.

Ciarrocca, who spent the last three seasons at Minnesota, loves the machinery of offensive football and relishes watching it evolve over time. And he knows Penn State's offense will grow through the shortened eight-game season.

Trouble is, it has to be functional soon, and under unique circumstances.

"We know what we're up against," Ciarrocca said. "We need to be clicking and going by the time we hit Indiana. Does an offense evolve throughout the season? Yeah, absolutely. You learn a little bit more about your team every single week. But we don't have that luxury right now with no non-conference games. But right now, that's where my vision is, that we've got to be clicking on all cylinders come Indiana."

But, yes, Clifford said, the pads still looked and felt good.

"We haven't been in pads in a long time, like a very long time," he said. "Honestly, without spring ball, the last time really we were in pads was the Cotton Bowl. So it's been an extremely long ride. But [on Wednesday], I could see the excitement on everybody's faces. I thought that some of the hits [Wednesday] were awesome, just to hear the pads going again, and get some of these young guys some experience with what college football is really like."

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