Penn State football: Sean Clifford holds himself accountable for struggles against Pitt

Although Penn State football won the battle against Pitt, Sean Clifford wasn’t fully satisfied with his performance on the field.

Not everybody can be perfect on game day. As a matter of fact, there’s no such thing as perfect in football — especially for quarterbacks. Sure, players can light it up on the stat sheets, but there’s always going to be a play or two left out on the field no matter what.

Considering it is a fast-paced game, it’s challenging to make every single play to perfection. Penn State football quarterback Sean Clifford knows this as he wrapped up his third start with the Nittany Lions this past weekend. While he’s been decent thus far, he’s got tons of work to do.

You don’t have to tell him that though — because he’s already aware. After a tight win at home against the Pitt Panthers, Sean Clifford wasn’t gleaming like he was over the last two weeks. Despite coming away with the victory, the sophomore passer was still thinking about what he could’ve done to play a much better game for his offense.

Penn State pulled off a 17-10 win — but there were tons of ‘what ifs’ left out on the field. Specifically, there were tons of ‘what ifs’ surrounding Clifford’s deep passes targeting his showstopping receiver, KJ Hamler.

Clifford takes accountability

“I need to get better,” Clifford stated while sitting in front of a swarm of reporters. “I missed my shots today, that’s on me, it’s not on anybody else. I need to have an enhanced focus during the week on shots.” Clifford also went on to mention that he hasn’t precisely lost focus on bigger plays, but he feels as though he might’ve gotten too comfortable.

Through his first two weeks as the Lions’ starter, Clifford completed 66.8-percent of his passes for a total of 559 yards, six touchdowns, and zero interceptions. For the most part, you couldn’t spot Clifford missing his targets on big plays as his confidence level built up throughout each series.

This past Saturday though, Clifford wasn’t as sharp. As Pitt brought the heat early and often, the Nittany Lions passer dealt with a ton of adversity.

Granted, his offensive line could’ve done a better job keeping him protected, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Clifford surely missed multiple deep passes down the field to an open KJ Hamler. On Saturday, the Penn State quarterback finished with his worst stat line to date. He completed just 46-percent of his passes for 222 yards and zero scores.

As a team, Penn State has a ton of work to do on both sides of the ball. But Clifford won’t put any offensive blame on anybody but himself.

He will have nearly two weeks to prepare for the next matchup against Maryland. And if his accountability following Saturday’s game is any indication, then we can assume Clifford is going to be extremely motivated to get much better for the next matchup.