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Saturday's Blue-White Game should provide Penn State followers with their first glimpses of two freshmen quarterbacks who figure to be in the mix for significant playing time beginning in 2023.
That's if Sean Clifford isn't back for a seventh season.
Just kidding -- sort of.
Clifford is taking advantage of the COVID-19 rule that allows for an extra season for those who desire.
And Clifford, the Nittany Lions' team leader who will be a rare four-year starting quarterback and will probably leave with all the Penn State passing records due to his longevity, apparently desires.
There's no reason to give him more than a couple series in this glorified scrimmage as it's much more important to see Christian Veilleux, who played well in one extended opportunity (vs. Rutgers) last year, along with newcomers Drew Allar and Beau Pribula.
For those players, the Blue-White Game can be meaningful in terms of building their own confidence and their teammates' confidence in them.
The revolving door of the transfer portal, which is ruining college sports, spins even more quickly for quarterbacks.
With both Allar and Pribula in the freshman class, it's highly likely one of them won't end their college career as Nittany Lions so every chance for playing time - even in a Blue-White Game -- is significant.
And it's not like the recruiting ever stops at the position. Penn State has already landed a commitment for 2023 from four-star recruit
Marcus Stokes of Florida.
Saturday is the first time for the young quarterbacks to show how they handle playing in front of a Beaver Stadium crowd -- and the weather is supposed to cooperate -- and game rules are typically set up to favor the passing game.
Which means limited blitzing and generally part practice, part scrimmage.
Throughout the spring, James Franklin has expressed concern about the lack of depth on the offensive line, which has been the most problematic position of his tenure, now approaching its ninth season.
Aside from the QBs, some of the players to check out are transfer wide receiver Mitchell Tinsley of Western Kentucky, a leading candidate to replace Jahan Dotson, along with freshman running back Nick Singleton as well as candidates to replace Jordan Stout as punter and placekicker.
ESPN at work
ESPN has done some extensive interviewing recently in its latest pursuit to further probe Joe Paterno's legacy.
The network produced an E-60 program that aired Monday night called "The Paterno Legacy," and presented it on the timetable of it being 10 years since the iconic Nittany Lion coach died from lung cancer two months after he was fired during the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
Keep in mind this is such a polarizing, black-and-white topic that opinions are unlikely to have changed during the last decade span and probably never will.
Some believe Paterno to be a scapegoat. Others see him as a villain.
Even his own son Jay -- a former Lion assistant coach and current Board of Trustees member -- characterized his father's legacy as "a revered patriarch" who became "a reviled pariah."
Did Paterno do as much if not more positive things to benefit one university and a town than anyone in college sports history? Yes.
Did he also fall victim to his own power and let many down -- including himself -- by not aggressively taking charge of Sandusky, even if it meant public defamation years ago? As much as so many of us admired Paterno, the answer there, unfortunately, is also yes.
The documentary interviewed Graham Spanier and Gary Schultz, two university officials who ultimately spent two months in prison for failing to protect Sandusky's victims. Both cried with regret on the set for not taking decisive action.
It also interviewed Aaron Fisher, one of Sandusky's victims.
ESPN didn't stop with the E-60 program. A week earlier, it released a sickening 32,000-word story that was incredibly researched on a former Penn State player from the late 1970s (Todd Hodne) who was convicted of raping multiple women on Penn State's campus.
Hodne was found guilty of rape in a Bellefonte courtroom in 1978 (he had already been dismissed from the team for theft but inexplicably remained on scholarship and in school.) Somehow, prior to sentencing in the rape case, the judge allowed Hodne to return to his hometown in New York, where he continued to rape women and ultimately murdered a male cab driver.
Hodne died in prison in 2020.
The story was the first that many, myself included, had ever heard of Hodne, but he was a monster, and the piece did not portrait Penn State in a positive light other than former Lion Irv Pankey, who compassionately helped one of the rape victims, Betsy Sailor.
In the wake of that story, ESPN Films has produced a new documentary called "Betsy & Irv," which is now available on ESPN+.
Neil Rudel covers Penn State football and can be reached at 814-946-7527 or nrudel@altoonamirror.com.