4 Things Penn State Football Needs to Clean Up for Auburn
By Nick Kreiser
Penn State Football has one of their biggest tests of the year this week, as they welcome the Auburn Tigers from the SEC.
The Nittany Lions have looked very good in their first two matchups, but there is still plenty of room for improvement for Penn State Football, especially with the No. 22 ranked Auburn Tigers looming.
A lot of the problems Penn State Football still has to work out are on the offensive side of the ball, but there are some defensive and special teams issues that also need to be resolved.
So, here are a few major things that this Penn State Football team needs to improve upon if they want to advance to 3-0.
Penn State Football QB Sean Clifford Needs to be More Accurate
Coming into the season, the biggest concern that Penn State Football fans had in regards to Sean Clifford was, can he cut down on turnovers? So far, he has been successful in that regard.
However, Clifford still needs to connect on some more throws to help this team beat some of toughest opponents on their schedule, and it starts this week when Auburn, who is ranked 22nd in the country, comes to Happy Valley.
Statistically, Clifford was much more accurate in Week 2 (72.4% completion percentage), than he was in week one (54.5%), albeit against an inferior defense in Ball State compared to Wisconsin.
However, there are still some throws that he needs to connect on for this offense to put up more points. In week one, he overthrew Jahan Dotson deep a number of times, as well as severely underthrew once him on a 10 yard out route.
At one point against Ball State, he overthrew Noah Cain, who was wide open out of the backfield. He also overthrew KeAndre Lambert-Smith on a “would have been” touchdown pass, had he connected.
The positive from all this is that his misses have been “good misses”, meaning that he is missing away from the defense, as opposed to towards the defense where it could turn into an interception.
To beat Auburn, those “good misses” will have to turn into completions.