Well that sucked.
First came the news from Iowa that the Hawkeyes dropped a shocker to Northwestern (w/ an assist from Eastern PA QB Dan Persa) and that set up a potential Big 10 title game in Happy Valley. Senior QB Daryl Clark came in looking for the defining win of his career but once again came up short on the big stage. Ohio State dominated from the opening kickoff and left the Nittany Lions scrambling at 8-2 with two games to go and no hopes of the Big 10 title or a BCS berth.
What does this mean for the legacy of Daryl Clark? He has led the team to a 19-4 mark in his two seasons as the signal caller. However, the four losses came to Iowa 2x, Ohio State, and USC all games the PSU offense never got going. The marquee win as a starter last year in Columbus comes with an asterisk as he was benched in favor of backup Pat Devlin who engineered the winning drive. However fair or not it may be the fact remains Clark’s legacy at Penn State will be stained with the lack of big game performance.
It’s really tough to tell how to gauge this Penn State squad. They played NOBODY on their out of conference slate, lost their two marquee games, and nobody else on their Big 10 schedule is of significance. It’s hard to even justify a Top 25 ranking to be frank. There is nothing on their resume that is remotely impressive. Likely Penn State has fallen to another trip to the Outback Bowl unless of course they drop their trip at Michigan State.
