Penn State football: Pat Freiermuth, Sean Clifford acknowledge a rankings snub

Penn State football tight end Pat Freiermuth wasn’t too pleased to see Sean Clifford ranked so low on a Big Ten QB power rankings list.

It’s the NCAA football offseason, so naturally, fans and players are starved for football to begin. Soon enough, the Penn State football program will be back to work in Happy Valley preparing for the 2019 NCAA season, but right now there’s nothing more to do but patiently wait.

For fans and writers, this time is a great opportunity to make predictions ahead of the 2019 season. We know, everything on paper is just a guess, but what fun would the offseason be without a little bit of controversy? You might hate power rankings, but at the end of the day, the rankings spice up the offseason — especially during the dead period when nothing is going on.

On Twitter, an account by the name of ‘Total CFB’ put together some power rankings a couple of days ago. For their list, they ranked the starting quarterbacks of the Big Ten. The top three picks were the obvious ones; Adrian Martinez, Justin Fields, and Shea Patterson. Penn State, however, did not see their guy Sean Clifford until No. 11.

Given that Clifford has yet to really play at all, it makes sense as to why he hasn’t earned his spot higher on the chart. Regardless of whether he truly belongs that low on the chart or not, Clifford’s teammate found the list and decided to acknowledge it on Twitter with a message. Above the initial tweet with the rankings, Penn State tight end Pat Freiermuth wrote, “People will find out soon enough,” followed by a “keep quiet” emoji and tagging Sean Clifford.

https://twitter.com/pat_fry5/status/1148986469383659521

Not too long after Freiermuth’s response, Sean Clifford himself replied to the tweet by quoting, “Move in silence,” along with the same emoji. Nobody knows what to expect out of the Junior quarterback this season, but Clifford is clearly noting the doubters surrounding him. While Twitter isn’t the best place for a player to fish for compliments, it’s undoubtedly a reliable platform, which can give an athlete some excellent bulletin board material. This here is just another example.