What went wrong for Penn State Football in heartbreaking loss to Iowa

 Penn State Football suffered their first loss of the season, a gut wrenching 23-20 loss on the road against the Iowa Hawkeyes.

This was such a strange game to watch, and in some ways tough to find “takeaways”, mainly due to Sean Clifford’s injury, which causes a “trickle-down effect” on the rest of the offense.

Offensively, the Nittany Lions‘ entire game plan was scrapped with the inability to push the ball downfield with backup quarterback Ta’Quan Roberson, and as a result, the defense was put into a lot of difficult situations, and was forced to be on the field quite often.

Penn State Football’s bye week certainly comes at a good time, as it gives the team a chance to get healthy. Also, if Clifford is out for an extended period of time, it give Roberson a chance to get more first team reps and become more comfortable in the offense.

Here are key takeaways from Penn State Football’s loss to Iowa.

Penn State Football QB Sean Clifford is Valuable

Coming into the season, many people were calling for someone other than Sean Clifford to be the starting quarterback. Well…we saw today how much value Clifford brings to this team.

Penn State Football was up by two scores when Clifford left the game, and they were significantly out-gaining the Hawkeyes. Clifford completed 60% of his passes and added a rushing touchdown before having to leave the game.

The third-year starter was not perfect when he was in the game, but he was certainly more effective than Ta’Quon Roberson. Now…Roberson does not deserve all of the blame, there were a few key drops and a lot of penalties, but there is still a clear drop off in quarterback production from Clifford to Roberson.

There is some debate that the coaching staff should have had Roberson more prepared to play in a situation like that, and while there is some truth to that, at the end of the day, the coaches can’t go out there and make the throws that Roberson missed, for him.

Just like with any aspect of football, there is blame to go around and it is not as simple as pointing fingers at one particular player or coach. Roberson needed to play better, maybe the coaches could have prepared him a little better and adjusted the game plan to better fit him. Plus, the false start penalties and dropped passes did not help the offense either.

Regardless, it was clear that something was missing when Clifford was not out there. The combination of a good arm, leadership, and experience that the third year starter brings is extremely valuable to this team.