Sean Clifford NFL Draft Prospect Report

QB, Penn State

Sean Clifford is a quarterback enigma. He had everyone excited with his 2019 campaign where he threw 23 touchdowns against just seven interceptions. Unfortunately, he followed that up with a disappointing 2020 which saw him throw 16 touchdowns and nine interceptions. It was not an awful season, but it was a regression. Adding on that he has only completed about 60% of his passes, it makes you wonder whether Clifford is a legitimate NFL prospect or just an average B1G QB.

To get a better idea of Clifford, I watched his highlights against Michigan State as well as a video of Penn State wide receiver, Jahan Dotson vs. Ohio State cornerback, Shaun Wade, because that was one of the few ways to find unbiased footage of Clifford.

Athleticism

Sean Clifford has above average athleticism, and they did a decent amount of zone read as part of their offense. He’s not going to wow anybody with his athleticism, but it’s serviceable enough to pick up some yards on the ground and occasionally escape outside of the pocket.

Awareness

Clifford is very much a first-read quarterback so he benefitted from good scheming and would be greatly hindered if his scheme did not set him up for first read success. Even then, he ran into some hairy situations.

An original version of this post had a gif that was not of Clifford throwing a bad pass. There are plenty of bad passes from Clifford, but I believe this tweet best sums him up.

Penn State's offense is hilarious right now Sean Clifford just rolled out for two yards and then threw for negative one to get to 4th and 11
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) September 4, 2021

 

 

Another issue I noticed is that he tends to continually drift back as a play goes on. He’d throw off his back foot way too much. He simply doesn’t have the arm strength to make a habit of this.

Arm Talent

There isn’t much to say here. Everything I saw graded out as average, and this was in his highlight video, so average might be the ceiling for his accuracy.

Conclusion

You can put away your pen and paper, because Sean Clifford is nothing to write home about. He is the definition of an average college football quarterback, and that has no place in the NFL. I have seen people picking Penn State as a sleeper team this year to win the Big Ten, but that’s not happening. Even in college, Clifford is a trailer of a quarterback who has to be carried to victory, not a guy who can lead the team on his own.

Author: Joe Loncarich