Penn State Football records on the cusp of being broken this season
By Nick Kreiser
While wins are certainly what’s most important, there are numerous Penn State Football records that will likely be broken this season.
Some may surprise you, some are career records, some are single season records, and some are true freshman records.
These are the records that Penn State Football fans should keep an eye on as the season rolls along.
Penn State Football quarterback and passing records
Say what you want about it taking Sean Clifford six years to break some of these records, but I could give most of you 60 years of D1 college football and you still wouldn’t break any records.
Clifford is just six touchdown passes shy of tying and seven shy of breaking Trace McSorley’s career passing touchdowns record of 77. It’s also worth noting that despite Clifford being around for awhile, he still currently has 73 fewer pass attempts than McSorley had in his Penn State Football career. So if Clifford can throw six touchdowns in his next 72 attempts, it will have taken him fewer pass attempts to reach 77 touchdowns than it took McSorley.
The passing yards record is a bit further away, as Clifford is 1,030 yards shy of McSorley’s career passing yards mark, which is 9,899. That’s a mark that is still well within reach and will likely fall this season.
Entering the season, Sean Clifford was also the program’s all-time leader in completion percentage; and so far through five games of his final season, he still is. He is currently completing 62% of his passes this season, and his career mark is 60.6%. Second place is Daryll Clark at 60.2%.
Finally, it’s looking like Clifford will in fact challenge McSorley’s record for the most wins by a Penn State Football quarterback. The Nittany Lions won 31 games with McSorley as their starting quarterback, and so far, they’ve won 26 games with Clifford under center.
So, five more wins with Sean Clifford at quarterback, and he will tie his predecessor’s record; and with six more, he’ll break it. With seven regular season games remaining (plus a bowl game), No. 14 has an opportunity to cement himself as the all-time winningest quarterback in the history of Penn State Football.