The transfer portal, college football’s version of free agency, makes for a hectic offseason. And that’s especially true now, with those who transfer gaining immediate eligibility.

Tracking the comings and goings at the most important position in sports, quarterback, is particularly interesting. There is no bigger beneficiary to the one-time transfer rule than the QBs, who don’t have to sit buried on the depth chart awaiting a chance to play behind an incumbent starter. Instead, they can zip off to a new school for a better situation and a better chance to earn playing time.

That’s what 2 Penn State QBs did this offseason, as last season’s backup Will Levis bolted for Kentucky and 3rd-stringer Micah Bowens fled for Oklahoma. That’s not particularly unusual or surprising in today’s game. But for whatever reason, Penn State did not add a transfer QB of its own, leaving it with just 3 scholarship QBs. In my estimation, that’s a big risk for one of the B1G’s best programs.

The combination of Penn State’s talented roster and lack of QB depth make it the biggest boom-or-bust team in the country. On the one hand, it’s easy to see the Nittany Lions challenging Ohio State for a Big Ten title and returning to a New Year’s Six Bowl for the 2nd time in 3 years. On the other hand, would anyone be surprised if the season went up in flames like last season and Penn State finished under .500?

Everything is on the table, because there is such little margin for error.

Penn State boasts some of the conference’s top units at running back, wide receiver, offensive line, defensive line and linebacker — basically everywhere except at QB. Save for this past year, James Franklin has recruited extremely well, and it shows. This is a roster capable of being a top-10 team, like the way it finished in 2020 and started in 2019. It’s such a good roster that it will likely start the season in the top 20 and maybe even top 15, just based on talent, even though the program is coming off its first sub-.500 season since 2004.

The key to it all is undoubtedly incumbent QB starter Sean Clifford, who was very good in 2019 but regressed in 2020 to the point that he got benched for Levis. Clifford is working with his third offensive coordinator in 3 seasons, not an ideal recipe for success.

The Nittany Lions need Clifford to be at his best again this season. They also need a little injury luck, because you don’t want to play an inexperienced backup QB at Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio State. It’s likely that returning freshman Ta’Quan Roberson will be called on for a few plays here or there as Clifford inevitably extends a play with his legs, takes a big hit and needs to sit. He got knocked out of the East-deciding Ohio State game in 2019.

That’s why it would’ve been nice to have an experienced transfer on the roster, so Roberson isn’t getting his experience in a high-leverage situation. That’s not really fair to him. Penn State’s first 3 games (at Wisconsin, vs. defending MAC champion Ball State and vs. Auburn) may not yield a ton of opportunities for Roberson to get his feet wet.

So why didn’t Penn State add a transfer to hedge its bet against Clifford? Other B1G teams did: Michigan has Texas Tech transfer Alan Bowman to challenge Cade McNamara (and keep 5-star freshman JJ McCarthy’s spot warm); Michigan State picked up Temple transfer Anthony Russo to compete with Payton Thorne; Northwestern added South Carolina transfer Ryan Hilinski to be its likely starter; and Illinois boosted its depth with former Rutgers starter Art Sitkowski in case returning starter Brandon Peters struggles.

While Ohio State may have an uncertain QB situation, it has so much depth that it can plug in the next in line when one underperforms or gets hurt. Iowa is more similar to Penn State with a great roster and a QB needing to have a better season, but Alex Padilla reportedly made strides and closed the gap with Spencer Petras.

Maybe Penn State has that much confidence in Roberson (0-for-1 passing as a Lion so far) that it felt like he was ready to be the backup, but reports from this spring indicated he still had a ways to go to close the gap with Clifford. Can you blame him? The pandemic was hard on young QBs, as they didn’t get as much in-person time to acclimate themselves to a college QB room. Practice reps were limited, and a lot of meetings were on Zoom. Roberson, though, is a former 4-star recruit who has a lot of potential; he just needs time and experience.

Ideally, a program like Penn State would have someone to step in and lead the way to victory. Look at Indiana, which lost star QB Michael Penix Jr. to a season-ending injury — and the very next game, went out and ended a 10-game losing streak to Wisconsin by winning at Camp Randall, thanks to Utah transfer Jack Tuttle.

Look at a program like LSU, which had its potential starter Myles Brennan go down with a season-ending injury in camp this week. But the Tigers have Max Johnson ready to step in, as they were in a battle for the starting job.

From all of the available evidence, that sort of player isn’t on Penn State’s roster. If Clifford goes down or underperforms, Penn State will likely be in trouble — at least in the short term.

The Nittany Lions are all in on Clifford on 2021. It’s a risk, with as wide a range of potential outcomes as any team in the country.