LOS ANGELES -- Greetings from La La Land, where we kick off our Rose Bowl coverage with a continuation of the biggest burning question of the season for Penn State.
That's where we'll start our offensive outlook, which includes lots of good info from the Penn State camp.
1. Will Drew Allar play in the Rose Bowl? And should he?
If this were any other bowl game, the answer to both of those questions would be a resounding yes.
But this is not any other bowl game, as we've been talking about here for weeks now. This is the Rose Bowl, this bowl game matters, unlike most if not all of the others, and Penn State really, really wants to win this one.
So, no, I am not expecting Allar to play. But I definitely believe he should play, in a well-designed and scripted series or two that would at least allow the prized young quarterback to soak in the full experience.
Offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich has twice used the phrase "win the game" when discussing how the team would go about preparing for this contest. He first said it at Penn State's bowl media day back home, and addressed the subject again with reporters in LA early Thursday morning when asked about how he would balance the quarterback room.
"You phase it," Yurcich said. "So, early on in bowl prep you're trying to develop as best you can the young guys because you have time. Then as you melt into the game week, you're tapering those reps a little bit more to the guys that are going to play.
"It's a lot about development early, and then as it gets closer to game time, you've got to get ready for the game and win the game."
To be clear, the "win the game" component means Sean Clifford is going to start. Sean Clifford is going to keep playing. And Sean Clifford is going to play the entire way as long as things are close.
The Penn State coaches believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that Clifford gives the team its best chance to win a game. Any game. Especially a tough game against an excellent Utah defense.
That last part is key. This isn't some awful Pac-12 defense. The Utes play defense like Big Ten teams play defense -- tough, physical and switching things up with quality personnel.
There is nothing Utah can do on defense that Clifford hasn't already seen in his long, long career. But if Allar goes into the game, the pressure of it being the Rose Bowl and that caliber of defense could put the offense in a tough spot, even if for only one series.
And in this kind of game, one series could determine the outcome.
Now, my personal preference is that, yes, go ahead and give Allar a little bit of time because that absolutely will help him right now, it will help him for the offseason and it will help him next year. I seriously doubt he's going to do anything to lose this game in one or two series -- but hey, that's easy for me or you to say because we're not there every day in practice.
As much as we'd all love for Allar to be completely ready right now, every hunch I have tells me that, no, he's probably not even remotely as good or prepared as Clifford is at this stage.
Here's what Yurcich had to say when asked about Allar's development during bowl prep, and note how he also lumped in Beau Pribula in his answer. That's by design to make sure and keep giving Pribula every little nugget of praise.
"It's just a little bit quicker with both of them," Yurcich said. "It's just little things that used to take three seconds at the line of scrimmage, now are there. It's just a whole process mentally, from run checks to RPOs to protection, progressions, all that stuff. It's not one thing. It's just been an overall developmental improvement."
That all sounds great, but it doesn't mean that the coaches have enough faith in Allar to put him in this game against this opponent when the only goal is to win the game.
I'll have much more on Allar tomorrow, after he speaks to the media for the first time this season.
2. The single biggest thing that led to Penn State's offensive success this season
I want to go back to Purdue week. A buddy of mine who hosts a radio show on the Pennsylvania Sports Network, Joe Lodanosky, asked me a marvelous question: What if the Lions go run for 220 yards against Purdue?
Well, that didn't happen. But it was a great question because it was intended to try and frame how successful this season could be if, in fact, Penn State could run the ball. Which it couldn't last year, especially in short-yardage situations.
Major props to Yurcich and O-line coach Phil Trautwein for figuring out what needed to be done to run the ball. And once the Lions proved they could do that, to go along with having an excellent defense, it just made everything so much easier for Clifford and everybody else on offense.
Yurcich was asked to explain what led to the short-yardage success, which has been a game changer, particularly when using the T formation.
"A really good package that we've come up with," Yurcich said. "But it's not just plays.
"I think the plays are kind of secondary really. It's about the players' attitudes and their belief in one another, their ability to come off the ball. I think our backs have done a tremendous job. I think Sean has done a great job making sure that we're in the right plays. Our staff has done a tremendous job game planning and helping me out and making sure that we're taking advantage of whatever front that we see.
"It's a collective deal, and there's a lot of shared ownership on it from players and the rest of our staff who have been tremendous throughout the whole season."
As for the T formation, tight end Tyler Warren had a good explanation for why it's so effective.
"One thing is just numbers," Warren said. "It's a lot of numbers you've got to deal with. There's a lot of bodies going in one direction to stop for a yard or 2 yards. But another thing that I think is just kind of our offensive mentality where it's guys doing jobs that they don't always do all the time. They are going to do it to the best of their ability, because that's how we're playing for each other, not for ourselves. So, I think that formation speaks a lot about that."
Penn State could be without starting left tackle Olu Fashanu once again, and if so, that might be an area of concern for the running game and the overall offense against a good Utah defense.
"Just how fast their linebackers are," center Juice Scruggs said when asked what stands out about the Utes. "They run to the ball, come downhill, and their D-line up front is big and strong. We just got to come out and play our game and we'll be fine."
I'll have much more on the running game Sunday morning with a recap of what Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen had to say in their first interviews of the season coming Saturday.
3. Is Mitchell Tinsley up to challenge of being No. 1 wide receiver?
As I wrote during the week, Parker Washington's absence is the single biggest reason I'm picking Utah to beat the Lions.
It'll be up to Tinsley to step up and have a big game in his collegiate finale. It's been quite a wild ride for him, too, as he began his career in junior college and will end it playing in the Rose Bowl.
"I'm still trying to grasp it for sure, but yeah, it's definitely surreal. It's a dream come true to be able to play in this game," Tinsley said.
"I didn't have any offers out of high school," Tinsley later said. "Only played my senior year of high school, so I kind of did that to myself.
"But yeah, I had zero offers. I ended up walking on at the Hutchinson Community College. You know, like I said, I bet on myself and walked on there and ended up starting halfway through my freshman year. Then my sophomore year came around. I had eight or nine smaller Division I schools, and I ended up going to Western Kentucky."
Tinsley then came to Penn State this season and has 45 catches for 528 yards and four TDs.
Most of that, however, came with Washington on the field taking a lot of the attention from defenses. Now, Utah is going to be squarely focused on keeping Tinsley quiet.
If that happens, Penn State could be in big trouble.
Tinsley said "taking advantage of my opportunities" has been his biggest where he's improved the most this season. He has an incredible opportunity in this game, and if he can come up really big, it would help his possibly win and should help his NFL draft stock.
That's why he came to Penn State in the first place.
"I wanted play at the Power Five level, and I wanted NFL scouts to see me playing against the best competition week in and week out," he said. "So I feel like for me hopping in the portal after the year I had, I knew that there would be some Power Five schools that at least wanted me. You know what I mean? It ended up being really good for me when I got into the portal."
4. Tight ends have played great, and need to do so again
All season long, we've heard the Penn State camp say it has the best tight end room in the country. Well, it didn't necessarily feel that way early on, as it took some time for the offense to start maximizing the usage of the tight ends.
But once Yurcich got things figured out, the Lions have indeed been very dangerous from the tight end spot.
Brenton Strange is third on the team with 32 receptions and has five TDs. Theo Johnson has 19 catches and four TDs. And Warren has nine catches with three TDs.
The total of 60 catches is good but not great. By comparison, Utah tight end Dalton Kincaid has 70 catches and eight TDs by himself. He also has opted out of this game.
Still, for three different tight ends to account for 12 touchdown receptions, that goes to show all of them are dangerous and have to be accounted for at all times.
"I think really a big thing was second half of the season, when I really started feeling like 100% healthy, I feel like early on I wasn't at 100%," Johnson said of his development. "But I think it kind of showed in my play like when I really started to feel like myself again."
This will be the final game for Strange, Johnson and Warren to play together, as Strange has already declared for the NFL draft. They all would love to see this three tight end monster go out on a strong note.
"That's my guy," Warren said of Strange. "He's been with me here the whole time I've been here. He's taught me a lot and been there for me a lot."
5. You'll hear it a lot: Utah is like a Big Ten team
It's the one topic that keeps coming up over and over again with regards to these opponents. The Penn State players were asked about it Thursday, and shoot, I was even on a radio show in Salt Lake City and the fellas asked me if I think it's true.
From what I can tell, that definitely seems to be the case.
As I said on the radio, I don't have a lot of respect for Pac-12 defenses. They are -- generally -- soft and weak and don't like to come up and hit for four quarters.
Utah does seem to be very different. On defense, on offense, in the overall mindset. The Utes wear it as a badge of honor to play tough and physical, so in that regard, they do come across like an Iowa or Wisconsin kind of opponent -- only with better offensive weapons.
"They remind you of a Big Ten team," Yurcich said. "I don't know specifically in comparisons, but the way they play, I think their physicality by nature, there's going to be a lot of carryover."
"It's a different style," Clifford said when asked if Utah seems like a Big Ten team. "You see it in little nuances here and there. But realistically, football is football. They play with 11 guys, we play with 11 guys. And then it's just doing some things schematically."
Here's the thing, though, about that Big Ten style dealio: It's one thing to say you love playing tough and physical football when, in fact, your opponents aren't always really tough and physical. Like in the Pac-12.
We all know Penn State IS a Big Ten team and WILL play tough and physical for all four quarters. You can bank on that. So, if the Lions are still punching hard left and right in the third and fourth quarter, as we know they will be, then we'll see how Utah holds up in that regard.
