Analyst: Penn State Brings 'Dynamic Athleticism' to Auburn

Mike Golic Jr. dissects Penn State-Auburn, the dueling run games and what to make of Sean Clifford.

Mike Golic Jr., who played guard at Notre Dame, still thinks like an offensive lineman. As he watched Penn State's Nicholas Singleton break off three big runs against Ohio, Golic identified with the linemen celebrating their big-play back.

"... When you look up from the bottom of a pile and see your guy 40 yards downfield making a play happen, it sparks something in you," he said.

Golic, now a DraftKings analyst and host of the GoJo podcast with former Notre Dame teammate Brandon Newman, believes Penn State has found its spark. In an interview to preview Saturday's Penn State-Auburn game, Golic discussed the Lions' run game, quarterback Sean Clifford and an Auburn offense that will test Manny Diaz's defense.

Here's Golic's breakdown of Penn State-Auburn. This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

HOW TO WATCH THE PENN STATE-AUBURN GAME

Question: What do you like about Penn State and where can it improve?

Mike Golic Jr.: Coming into the season, we've all known the thing they needed to work on: getting a consistent ground game. And while the opening stanza against Purdue didn't do much to assuage those fears, the Ohio game was a good step in the right direction. Everyone's been super high on Nick Singleton and what he can bring to this offense. You saw the big-play ability, you saw the dynamic athleticism on display and the reasons why people kind of whisper the name Saquon Barkley when they talk about the level of talent that they've got in the backfield with a player of his caliber.

They're certainly going to get a test against an SEC defense that, even though they're working in a new coordinator this year, you still know the kind of bodies that they recruited up front there. But I thought it was good reps for them in the run game, and the offensive line was able to move a few more people.

Q: At this point in his career, who is Sean Clifford?

Mike Golic Jr.: He's a guy who's been around a long time and I think, funny enough in this matchup, the name that keeps popping into my head when I think of, 'What kind of college quarterback is Sean Clifford?' is Bo Nix [the former Auburn quarterback now at Oregon]. There's a lot of good that comes with this player. And then every once in a while you have plays like the pick-6 in the Purdue game that sort of sticks in your brain and make you wonder, 'All right, what exactly is going on here?" So I think you've got got one of college football's true college quarterbacks in Sean Clifford.

He's been around for a long time; he's like a Syracuse point guard at this point. He's a really good player who, every once in a while, will make a head-scratching mistake for you. And it's part of what makes college football fun for me. He is a prototype college quarterback. He's very good at this level. I don't know what his pro prospects look like, but he's going to give you a chance on a lot of weekends.

Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford has completed 61 percent of his passes for 495 yards and five touchdowns this season :: Trevor Ruszkowski/USA Today Sports

Q: How would you make sense of Auburn at this point?

Mike Golic Jr.: Auburn was one of the more interesting programs coming into the year just because of everything that had been going on around the program. You essentially had everyone trying to track down your head coach Brian Harsin while he was on vacation, and there seemed to be this sort of witch hunt going on for him and a lot of confusion about what the future of his job managed to look like. So for Auburn football right now, they seem to be one of the teams going into this year that a lot of people looked at and wondered, how do you survive all that noise in the offseason? How do you survive everyone looking and expecting that your head coach is going to be fired?

We expected what happened against Mercer, and San Jose State made things a little bit more interesting [in a 24-16 Tigers win]. So I think this is a matchup that Penn State is rightly favored in. But Auburn chaos team, man. There's a few of these teams in every conference that you're never quite sure what to make sense of. And you know that the environment there [at Jordan-Hare Stadium] is certainly going to be a good one.

Q: How does Auburn win this game?

Mike Golic Jr.: I think you've got to corral Sean Clifford into some mistakes, right? You could force him into those situations. But it really it starts with just stymieing Penn State's ground game. So much of Penn State's offense is RPO-based and [offensive coordinator] Mike Yurcich trying to get the ball in the hands of his playmakers and give Sean Clifford options, especially when the offensive line hasn't always been as consistent a presence as you want it to be. So if Auburn can muddy that up in the middle and try and make that a problem, then now you make Sean Clifford spend a little more time back there and think a little longer and harder.

Q: What is Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz looking at in this game?

Mike Golic Jr.: I'd say focusing on the running game is a pretty good idea when Tank Bigsby is in your backfield. He's one of the big-time returning rushers there. It's a stark departure from what you've seen in the first couple of weeks, going from Aidan O'Connell's version of the Purdue offense to a team in Auburn that I think is going to be decidedly in the other direction. So you've got to load up and try and stop them there. Manny Diaz has shown himself fully capable on that front. We know the reputation he had coming from Miami. Maybe he didn't always have the bodies down there in the last couple of years. But certainly when they had top end talent, he was able to make it happen. And he has stepped in [at Penn State] so far admirably.

Q: Who do you like in this game?

Mike Golic Jr.: I think I like Penn State in this one. [The Ohio game] was a good confidence boost. While the level of competition is going to go up, I think we saw some of the big-play ability that people were hoping for in this offense. That should allow them to then find a little bit more consistency and a little more confidence on the ground. Sometimes, even as a former offensive lineman, you've got to see the ball go through the basket a little bit. So you walk in this week and turn on the tape and go, 'That's what we've been coached to do, these are what the reps are supposed to look like, and when we give a player as talented as Singleton a chance, look at what it can produce.'

To me, that was always one of those things — whether it was a quarterback who could buy time and create plays or a running back like that — when you look up from the bottom of a pile and see your guy 40 yards downfield making a play happen, it sparks something in you. It's a reminder that, maybe we're not going to be the Joe Moore Award-winning unit [as the nation's best offensive line] or maybe we're never going to really forklift everyone out of there on a down-in, down-out basis. But man, if we just work together, get five guys seeing things as one and get a hat on a hat here, we can open up enough for the guys that we have that are super-talented in that backfield to go make plays.

Read More

First Look: Penn State vs. Auburn

Sean Clifford on Penn State: "It's a championship team"

What we learned from Penn State's win over Ohio

The Penn State-Ohio report card

The Nicholas Singleton era begins at Penn State

Lions Legacy Club, a new NIL collective, has big plans for Penn State football

AllPennState is the place for Penn State news, opinion and perspective on the SI.com network. Publisher Mark Wogenrich has covered Penn State for more than 20 years, tracking three coaching staffs, three Big Ten titles and a catalog of great stories. Follow him on Twitter @MarkWogenrich. And consider subscribing (button's on the home page) for more great content across the SI.com network.