Penn State Football: Examining Nittany Lions’ biggest strengths, weaknesses in 2022

Penn State Football’s biggest strength – The passing game

This can be broken down into three subcategories, the first of which being the pass catchers, which will almost certainly be the best position group(s) for the Nittany Lions this season.

Although Jahan Dotson is off to the NFL, don’t expect the wide receiver room to miss a beat. Parker Washington is one of the best returning receivers in the Big Ten, and KeAndre Lambert-Smith is also back as a third-year starter. As the cherry on top, James Franklin was able to land wideout Mitchell Tinsley in the transfer portal, an All-Conference USA selection last season.

Penn State Football also has some talented young receivers that can make an impact as backups and rotational players, namely Malick Meiga and Kaden Saunders.

The Nittany Lions also return their top three tight ends from last year: Brenton Strange, Theo Johnson, and Tyler Warren. There were a few instances last season where some members of this group had some untimely drops, but all-in-all, the trio had a solid season, and having all three of them back is huge for Mike Yurcich and the offense.

As for quarterback, is Sean Clifford going to light the world on fire and be a Heisman contender? No, but he has shown that, when healthy, he can do enough to put Penn State in position to beat any team in the conference if he has the right guys around him, which he does.

He played turnover-free football in week one at Wisconsin last year against a good Badger defense, despite not having much time to throw the ball. He also completed 87.5% of his passes for 280 yards and two touchdowns against Auburn, and despite a pair of interceptions, still did enough to help the Nittany Lions jump out to a 17-3 lead in Iowa City against one of the best defenses in the country.

Clifford is the school’s all-time leader in completion percentage, and perhaps most importantly, having 33 starts (in 38 games played) under belt, there’s nothing that a Big Ten defense can throw at him that he hasn’t already seen. This will also be the first season since 2019 that Clifford has had the same offensive coordinator for consecutive seasons, so he will be comfortable and familiar with the offense from the get-go.

The backup quarterback situation also looks far better than it did last year, as Christian Veilleux or Drew Allar will likely find themselves in that role to begin the season.

The final variable for the pass offense is the pass protection.

Penn State Football returns Caedan Wallace at right tackle, and also Juice Scruggs at center, who was arguably their best offensive lineman last season. Olu Fashanu, who looked good down the stretch of last season once he began to see more playing time, is likely to be the left tackle.

Redshirt freshman Landon Tengwall will likely be one of the starting guards, and he, like Fashanu, looked promising in a limited sample size at the end of last season. The other guard spot will either be the All-Ivy League transfer from Cornell, Hunter Nourzad, or Sal Wormley.

With what is likely to be an improved run game, which will help keep defenses honest and force them to defend both the run and the pass, the Nittany Lions can improve upon an already solid 268.5 passing yards per game from last year, which was the 26th best mark in FBS.

Add all of those pieces together, and Penn State can have one of the best passing attacks in the Big Ten in 2022.