Kirk Herbstreit believes Penn State football doesn’t have question marks on offense

ESPN College Football Analyst Kirk Herbstreit doesn’t believe Penn State football has a ton of question marks on offense.

This year, the Penn State football program is turning a page in the Big Ten. While they are expected to remain competitive in the conference, there are still many doubters from the outside looking in because of their unknowns at skill positions on offense.

For starters, the Nittany Lions have a young crew at wide receiver. Their top three wideouts Justin Shorter, K.J. Hamler, and Jahan Dotson are all stellar, but unproven talents who happen to be underclassmen. This year will be the season the young wideouts are expected to break out for the Lions.

In the backfield, there’s also another change to the starting running back position for the second year in a row. Last year, the Lions had to turn a page from the dominant Saquon Barkley era to Miles Sanders. While the Lions likely believed that Sanders would stick around to start for two years, that didn’t end up being the case.

Sanders decided to take his talents to the NFL Draft after a breakout year, leaving the Lions to move on from yet another running back. Now, the Lions are expected to run with Ricky Slade as the top back along with a handful of other young talents.

While their backfield is loaded with highly-touted young recruits, they are still considered to be question marks nonetheless. Then last but surely not least, the quarterback position. Like many assumed, the redshirt Sophomore Sean Clifford will take over for the Lions All-Time passing leader Trace McSorley.

With quarterback being the most crucial position on offense, nobody knows what to expect. And now that QB, amongst the other three positions are unknown; many analysts use those question marks as reasons why the Lions won’t have a successful year in 2019. But ESPN College Football Analyst Kirk Herbstreit doesn’t believe that’s the case.

Like every year, Kirk Herbstreit put together his “Herbie Awards,” and once again he showed a fair amount of love to the Nittany Lions. However, the most significant “award” that they earned was considered to be the “question mark that ISN’T actually a question mark” for the quarterback, running back, and wide receiver positions.

With all of the young and unproven talent, the Lions have at those skill positions; many don’t know what to expect from Penn State in 2019. However, that just means that Penn State could end up being a sleeper offense this season. While the defense is already expected to have a good year, the offense might end up shocking the NCAA this upcoming season, and some are taking notice.