Will Levis has the ball knocked loose on a sack for one of Penn State’s four turnovers between its two quarterbacks on Saturday against Iowa.
                                 Barry Reeger | AP photo

Will Levis has the ball knocked loose on a sack for one of Penn State’s four turnovers between its two quarterbacks on Saturday against Iowa.

Barry Reeger | AP photo

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STATE COLLEGE — In August, it appeared Penn State would not play football in the fall for the first time in the program’s 134-year history.

There are some Nittany Lions fans who would take that right about now.

Will Levis started at quarterback on Saturday. Sean Clifford finished. None of it prevented a fifth straight miserable first half in a 41-21 loss to Iowa that dropped Penn State to 0-5 for the first time in those 134 seasons.

“It’s not good enough,” said coach James Franklin, who has lost seven of his last 10 games after opening the 2019 season 8-0. “There’s obviously a lot of circumstances going on this year, but none of that matters at the end of the day.

“We’ve got to find a way to play good football, and we have not done that.”

The numbers, at this point, are staggering.

Penn State is believed to be the first team in college football history to open its season ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll and then lose the first five games.

In 12 regular season games a year ago, the Lions allowed 169 points. Through five games in 2020, they’ve surrendered 180.

Through five games in 2020, they’ve been outscored 117-33 before halftime.

Through five games in 2020, they’ve turned it over 13 times and are minus-9 in turnover margin, among the worst teams in the nation.

“That’s the story of the game, that’s the story of the season,” Franklin said of the turnovers.

Against the Hawkeyes — who beat Penn State for the first time since 2010 — the Lions gave it away four times leading to 24 Iowa points. And they also had two fourth-and-short attempts turned away at midfield.

The second fourth down failure came near the end of the first half, and it led to Iowa punching it in for a touchdown to go up 24-7 at the break.

“I’m doing everything I possibly can to inject some confidence and inject some momentum in the offense to try to get us going,” Franklin said. “Now obviously when you don’t pick it up, and they’re able to go down and score, it’s obviously a critical play. I don’t disagree.

” … It’s not just about the decision, it’s about the execution. We didn’t execute and ended up giving up a big touchdown right before the end of the half.”

The lone wrinkle in the same tired story this week was that Penn State actually led at one point, going up 7-3 in the first quarter on a long drive capped by a 6-yard Keyvone Lee touchdown run.

Incredibly, it was the Lions’ first lead in four weeks, when they went up 35-28 on Indiana in overtime of the season-opener.

A few minutes later, the Lions had lost 36-35. Though they might not have grasped it at the time, their season was already over.

On Saturday, the obligatory second-half spark came down 31-7 when Clifford took over the offense again from Levis.

The junior’s first two passes since being benched last week at Nebraska actually went for touchdowns — 28 yards to Brenton Strange and 68 yards to Jahan Dotson.

Penn State never got closer than 31-21 as Clifford closed out the game with two interceptions, the second one snagged by defensive lineman Daviyon Nixon and returned 71 yards for a touchdown.

It was the third straight week that a Clifford turnover was returned for a score. Maryland and Nebraska did it on fumble recoveries.

Clifford finished 13-for-22 for 174 yards and 13 on the ground. Levis was 13-for-16 for 106 yards passing and a team-high 34 rushing. He was also charged with two turnovers when a late pitch to Lee ended up on the ground and he lost a ball on a sack from behind.

“Quarterback is a concern, there’s no doubt about it,” Franklin said. “So we’ll continue to work with those guys each week.”

Franklin said his initial switch from Clifford to Levis had to do with too many turnovers by Clifford. And that was also the reason he went back to Clifford on Saturday.

”The whole reason for the change was the turnovers,” Franklin said. “We made the change to go with Will and did some good things with the quarterback running game and some of the stuff with how he was managing it. But then we started to turn the ball over again, and the whole reason for the change was turnovers.

“So, I felt like we had to do something, to go back to Sean. It initially helped us, but then the turnovers came back again.”

The Lions have four games left on the schedule — at Michigan (2-3), at Rutgers (1-4) and home against Michigan State (1-3) before facing a bottom-tier Big Ten West opponent at a neutral site.

“You can do two things when you’re facing adversity,” Dotson said. “You can pack it up and just quit, and that’s how you’re going to be the rest of your life. Or you can put your head down and work and just fight the adversity and come out on top.

“That’s what we need to do. We’ve got to work.”