Penn State football: Urban Meyer speaks highly of Sean Clifford

Penn State football quarterback Sean Clifford is set to debut. Former OSU head coach Urban Meyer had some exciting things to say about him.

Not too long from now, the Penn State football program will kick off a new era for their offense. Being that the quarterback position is arguably the most critical position in football, the Nittany Lions are anxious to see what they got in their newest starter, Sean Clifford.

Over the last three years, the Lions have been fortunate enough to roll with Trace McSorley as the full-time starter. As we know, McSorley uplifted the Lions as a team and broke through records with some impressive personal accolades.

Nowadays though, McSorley is back to square one once again looking for a spot on an NFL roster. Meanwhile, life goes on in Happy Valley without him. Months back, we were expecting Tommy Stevens to be making his starting debut against Idaho, but he had other plans.

After entering the transfer portal and landing in Mississippi State, Stevens left the Nittany Lions with a giant question mark on their roster. Suddenly, the redshirt sophomore Sean Clifford had to go from being a third-stringer as a freshman to the starting quarterback in 2019.

As a four-star recruit coming out of St. Xavier High School in Ohio, Clifford was a top-ten quarterback of his class. There’s no denying that he has the tools to succeed; he just has to be himself. Penn State’s head coach James Franklin is confident in Clifford.

So is their offensive coordinator, Ricky Rahne. But let’s step out of the box for a minute and seek an unbiased opinion from a former head coach within the Big Ten. How does former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer feel about Sean Clifford?

Meyer discusses the transition from McSorley to Clifford

As he joined the Big Ten Network on Saturday hour before kickoff, Urban Meyer addressed the quarterback situation at Penn State. That’s when Meyer revealed that he loves Trace McSorley as a player. And while he doesn’t know McSorley personally, Meyer believes that his presence in the Lions locker room likely played a significant part in their success over the last few years.

Now, Meyer believes that Clifford should take a lot of things he’s witnessed from McSorley over the last season and implement that into his own game and his leadership skills while trying to remain himself. Since Meyer can now speak freely about Big Ten teams without bias, he revealed what he knows about Penn State’s newest passer.

“I know we recruited him, he comes from one of the best high schools in America,” Meyer mentioned. “His high school coach and I are very close… he rated him as a ten.”

Meyer used to ask high school coaches to rate three aspects of their quarterbacks game from one to ten. For Clifford, he was mentioned as a ten all across the board for leadership, toughness, and competitiveness. Three qualities that will surely go a long way for the Lions this year.