Penn State Football – Revisiting Preseason Predictons/2nd Half Predictions

Preseason Prediction – Sean Clifford tops Trace McSorley’s single-season touchdown record

This is where it starts to get tough .. .Trace McSorley currently holds the Penn State Football record for passing touchdowns in a single season … he threw for 29 in 2016.

Sean Clifford threw for 23 in his first season as a starter in 2019, despite missing a game and a half due to injury. He may fall victim to that same fate again this season.

Clifford did not throw for any touchdowns against Iowa before being injured, and there is a good possibility he will also not play in the Nittany Lions’ next game against Illinois. This is going to make is extremely difficult to reach 30 touchdown passes this season.

Prior to last week, this seemed like a very good possibility, as Clifford had 11 touchdown passes through the first five games. Unfortunately, he is still stuck on 11 after not being able to connect on a touchdown pass at all before his injury last week.

As long as Clifford does not miss more than one start, this is still technically a possibility, though a very slim one. Assuming Clifford misses the Illinois game but is back against Ohio State, he would need to throw for a lot of touchdowns AND hope the Nittany Lions can make Big Ten title run to have a chance at breaking this record, although him throwing for a lot of touchdowns would help boost their chances of making that run.

That extra game in the Big Ten Championship game in this scenario would be a chance to add a few more touchdown passes to that total, but they need to get there first.

This prediction may very well be a miss for me, but I hope I’m wrong.