GREAT THINGS AWAITING, EXPECTED OF CLARK

Since Joe Paterno became head coach of the Penn State football program in 1966, nine players (including Curt Warner later this year) have been inducted into College Football's Hall of Fame. Exactly zero of them played quarterback. But just because none of Paterno's signal-callers have been immortalized in South Bend, it doesn't mean that this position isn't one of the greatest harbingers for the Lion's success in a particular season. As a matter of fact, it just about guarantees it.

Consider that Penn State will be led by senior captain Darryl Clark at quarterback this season. Last season he won the Big Ten's Offensive MVP award and joined Kerry Collins and Michael Robinson as quarterbacks that have guided the Lions to a Big Ten title. However, unlike Collins and Robinson, Clark accomplished this feat before his senior year, injecting Penn State fans with optimism for his final campaign - and for good reason.

Beginning in 1968, Penn State has enjoyed twenty 10+ win seasons under Paterno. The absolutely remarkable thing about this accomplishment is that each time a quarterback led the Lions to 10+ wins and returned for his next season, he did it again. Think about that. Never has a Paterno-coached quarterback failed to deliver after tasting success in the form of a double-digit win season! Seriously...I looked it up.

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A similar look at the history of 10+ win seasons over the same time period at Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Notre Dame and Alabama shows that this occurrence is unique to Penn State among those schools. And as more evidence that the quarterback is the major reason for this phenomenon, only once (1972-1973) has a first-year quarterback taken over a 10+ win Nittany Lions team and managed to repeat that accomplishment.

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The expectations facing Clark in 2009 include successfully defending the conference championship, being the captain to a team full of untested talent on both sides of the ball, improving on his own individual numbers to make a run to the Heisman trophy and continuing the newest Golden Age of Penn State football that he watched begin from the sidelines as a freshman in 2005. That may seem like a lot to lay on the shoulders of one man, but Clark has his teammates, all of Nittany Nation and history to rely on.