Vibes go a very long way in sports. Words like momentum, emotion, swagger, feeling and chemistry are both cliched in their usage and entirely true to their meaning. The more you have them, the more you can do with them. Sometimes how you feel can make up the ground between how good you are and how good you think you are.
If you’ve got a little something extra, it can make all the difference. And something a little extra might make tickets something a little extra special.
And that’s one of the bigger questions facing Penn State football as training camp began on Monday. What are the vibes? What are the emotions? What are the feelings? Is this thing on, and does anyone care that it is?
Because it’s hard to really put a finger on what to expect from a team and a program that has had two profoundly strange and hard-to-quantify seasons in a row. Is it 2016? A resurgence into relevancy? Is it 2018? A reminder of what was but what is still a bit out of reach?
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic created so many unique circumstances that it is nearly meaningless to assess. Can you really judge a program by that kind of a year in that kind of environment?
And then in 2021 an injury to quarterback Sean Clifford effectively derailed the Nittany Lions’ season at the midway point, turning a 5-0 start into a 2-6 finish which featured a host of additional injuries and opt-outs of the bowl game. While there was certainly something to be gleaned from that season, Penn State is almost certainly a healthy Clifford away from more wins, and perhaps more participation in the bowl game. Your record is your record, and the ability for a team to overcome adversity is a hallmark of greatness from both players and coaches, but some years just don’t go your way.
In turn, it has been a while since anyone has had a real sense of real tangible excitement around Penn State’s upcoming season. The 2021 season created a sense of normalcy in the world, but a season hijacked by injury in the thick of things caused any optimism to be quickly dashed. The Nittany Lions’ 2019 finished 11-2, but nobody really saw it coming, nor was the rise of Clifford an overwhelming opening stanza to his career.
Back now here in 2022 the Nittany Lions are lucky to have Clifford, but he will have to go a long way to win back many fans who have simply tired of watching him play. Clifford is who he is, and that has not always been a good thing.
Across the ball Penn State’s defense will likely be as good as ever, but almost certainly won’t be quite as good as it was in 2021. Special teams loses an all-timer at the specialist positions and the absence of Jahan Dotson creates more questions than answers on offense.
None of this is to say Penn State won’t be good. There is talent on both sides of the ball and an incoming freshman class that if nothing else will give fans something to look forward to in the future. The Nittany Lions are likely going to do what they should have done last year – beat everyone they should, and lose to some combination of the familiar faces. Penn State ought to sit around nine wins – and how those losses happen will have a lot to do with how people feel about things heading into the summer.
In some respects that’s the biggest challenge James Franklin faces right now in 2022. It’s that his offensive line is probably going to struggle, his quarterback is only going to be marginally better and his defense will do all it can in the process. There are far worse things than winning nine or 10 games — especially since Penn State hasn’t done that in a few years — but it’s just redundant at this point in the eyes of those looking at Franklin’s last eight seasons hoping for something in year nine. Penn State has turned into the football program version of its quarterback: a lot better than it gets credit for, but predictable in just enough ways that you can only get so excited about what’s next in its current form.
For Franklin’s part, there’s only so much he can do about this at any given moment. The team is the team. If turning into Ohio State or Alabama was just a thing that happened because you wanted it to then everyone would be really, really good. That’s not to say Franklin isn’t without responsibility in all of this, but in a game dictated by talent, you either have the horses or you don’t. Simplified? Perhaps.
Nevertheless, that leaves you in a loop like the one Penn State has found itself in post-2017: good, but not quite good enough. And that’s fine in a world where plenty of teams are bad, but it doesn’t do much for the vibes. And vibes can get you a long way.
Especially when today’s vibes can dictate tomorrow’s.
