Penn State football: Sean Clifford, KJ Hamler connection began years ago

Penn State football’s Sean Clifford and KJ Hamler are finally able to work as a duo on the field years after establishing a connection.

The point of offseason recruiting camps is mainly for college teams to evaluate incoming talent. As Penn State football hosts a handful of events during the summer, their goal is to find players that they want to bring in for the future. Basically, these camps are showcases for the players to land on the coaches radar. However, it has been proven that these camps have more significance.

This past weekend, Happy Valley witnessed the start of a very dangerous duo on the Penn State offense. Quarterback Sean Clifford managed to lean on his number one receiver, KJ Hamler for two scores against Idaho before the pair got the rest of the afternoon off.

While many thought that Clifford and Hamler’s connection just began this past summer and came to life on Saturday — we quickly found out that this offensive explosion has been years in the making. During both, Clifford and Hamler’s recruiting processes years ago, they teamed up more often than not at the offseason recruiting camps.

Eventually, they decided to really team up as they both landed at Penn State. “Cliff’s the reason I’m here,” Hamler mentioned after their dominant win over the Idaho Vandals this past Saturday. “And I appreciate him bringing me here because I wanted him to be my quarterback.”

There was hardly a time when Hamler didn’t work with Sean Clifford during their recruiting process. The young wideout revealed that whenever he had the opportunity, he would make sure that Clifford was his quarterback during drills as they had an unbelievable connection.

Clifford ended up picking Penn State back in 2015 as a four-star prospect. At that time, Hamler was still undecided and would take about a year before he made his decision.

The four-star wideout had interest from some significant schools, but a call to Clifford made his decision much easier. He felt a spark from the connection in the camps and wanted to bring that to life in the NCAA. Therefore, Hamler committed to Penn State in 2016.

The Clifford-Hamler connection didn’t get off to a quick start, as Trace McSorley was already running the Nittany Lions offense last season. So Clifford had to take a backseat for the time being. This year though, the wait is over. Hamler helped Clifford develop in the offseason, and also helped the sophomore quarterback this past Saturday as he convinced him to calm down.

Being that Clifford was debuting as a starter for the first time, it took a few series’ to shake the nerves. Once he did though, Clifford managed the Lions offense the way we imagined. And that recruiting camp connection between Clifford and Hamler came to life on the field.

With four receptions, Hamler managed to lead Penn State in receiving. In total, Hamler accounted for 115 yards and two touchdowns. He didn’t have to play the entire game to put up dominant stats as the young wideout made it look easy.

Despite the strength of opponent being weaker than most on schedule, it was still very clear that Clifford and Hamler have an undeniable chemistry that will go far for the Lions this season if they continue to work on the connection throughout the year.