McSorley primed to leave a legacy at Penn State

The beginning of Trace McSorley’s final season a Nittany Lion is, at last, just days away.

Twelve games, probably more, to build on an already sterling reputation as Penn State’s quarterback. Already a winner of a Big Ten championship, guiding the Nittany Lions to back-to-back New Year’s Six bowls including a Fiesta Bowl victory, and countless individual honors and accolades, McSorley’s work has been an important piece of the program’s proud, 132-year tradition.

So much so, the word “legacy” is a real and impactful sentiment for the 23-year old to consider.

Voices other than his will ultimately determine that legacy, and it will happen over the passage of time. But as the days until his final campaign in Happy Valley quickly disappear, he knows very much what he’d like it to be.

“I hope the fans look at me as someone who was a humble leader, someone who came to Beaver Stadium every single game and gave everything they had for the Blue and White and for Penn State. Someone who was able to bring Penn State back to the legacy that Penn State has always been. And someone who was able to bring Penn State back in that limelight and that national spotlight that it deserves to be in with the tradition that it has,” says McSorley. “Just one of those players that people can look back and talk about, hopefully for years, not only what I did on the field but what I meant to the team and the program and what I was able to do off the field.”

McSorley's on-the-field narrative is relatively straightforward.

Assuming the starting quarterback job from Christian Hackenberg following back-to-back 7-6 seasons in 2014 and 2015, respectively, McSorley’s impact did not appear instantly. Though he’d beaten out redshirt freshman Tommy Stevens in preseason camp, his first four starts produced just a 2-2 record, completing 74-of-117 passes for 707 yards and four touchdowns while topping Kent State and Temple and losing at Pittsburgh and Michigan.

Signs of potential flashed early, however.

A Nittany Lion offense that had been among the least productive in the Football Bowl Subdivision began its ascent into one of its most explosive. With McSorley leading the charge and sophomore tailback Saquon Barkley at his side, Penn State started putting up points with far more frequency than its 23.2 or 20.6 points per game in either of the previous two seasons.

Low-lighted by a 10-point effort at Michigan, the letdown proved to be an aberration as the Nittany Lions scored 24-or-more points in every other game that season. And in the process, they also reeled off nine-consecutive wins to upend the narrative of a .500 start into a Big Ten Championship and Rose Bowl berth, McSorley setting multiple program and conference records along the way. Leading the nation in yards per completion, and the Big Ten in passing efficiency, total offense, passing touchdowns, total passing yards and yards per pass attempt, McSorley earned MVP honors of the Big Ten Championship Game and was also named a second-team All-Big Ten selection.

Talk to McSorley’s teammates though, and the palpable accomplishments are not what stands out. To a man, leadership is the quality that defines McSorley’s presence within the program, from the locker room to the practice field, onto the stadium turf and far beyond the bounds of the game itself.

That he’s done so in the face of doubts and low expectations throughout has also proved an important ingredient to McSorley’s influence within the program. Equal parts understated and fiercely competitive, McSorley’s daily showing has set a baseline example of the heights that can be accomplished through hard work and perseverance.

“I’ve known Trace since we were both committed to Vanderbilt when we were high schoolers,” said fellow fifth-year senior cornerback Amani Oruwariye, “and he's just a guy that kept his head down and worked and waited for his opportunity. And when it came, he produced.

“He'll definitely go down as one of the best quarterbacks in Penn State history. He'll definitely be known as just a winner, that underdog that everyone doubted that will just prove people wrong.”

Oruwariye’s thinking likely has everything to do with McSorley’s follow-up performance to the 2016 breakout campaign. This time, entering 2017 with heightened expectations for Barkley especially, but also the Nittany Lion offense as a whole, McSorley lifted his play again.

Capped by a Fiesta Bowl MVP performance, McSorley helped lead the Nittany Lions to a 7-0 record and the No. 2 ranking in the country before dropping back-to-back games at Ohio State and Michigan State. Still, his 3,570 passing yards were good for second all-time at Penn State, and he’ll enter the 2018 season riding a 28-game streak with at least one touchdown pass.

Ranked ninth to finish the 2017 season, holding the same preseason ranking to enter the 2018 campaign, it’s that potential that leaves new offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne uncertain of McSorley’s legacy. Still holding the chance to accomplish so much, at Penn State but also in his playing career beyond it, McSorley’s possibilities are nearly limitless.

“I think (his legacy is) still to be determined. I would hope, I know at least in our program, it's going to be a kid who has done things the right way, has prepared the way we want all of our players to prepare, and then gone out there and performed extremely well in high-pressure situations,” said Rahne. “But I think his legacy is far from over, not only from this season but beyond. I'm still of the firm belief that he's going to play in the NFL for a long time, but even after that, his success after his football days are done is going to be part of his legacy that, as coaches here at Penn State, our program is going to be pointing to for a long time.”

Given the greater context at Penn State in the moment of McSorley’s arrival and success, that notion could especially hold true.

A program fighting for relevancy following a devastating scandal, all while battling against the after-effects of NCAA imposed sanctions and scholarship restrictions, that McSorley helped revitalize the Nittany Lions isn’t likely to be forgotten anytime soon.

“I think as time passes, mythology grows with some players, and I think that will probably happen with him,” said Rahne. “I think people will look back at him and be really appreciative of the impact that he's made on this program. And not only that but also the way that he's handled himself while he was here; through adversity, through success. And I think that when people are going to look back at him, he's going to be the embodiment of what they want a Penn State football player to be.”

Before taking a single snap this season, McSorley's name is already among those greats.

The career leader for total offense at Penn State with 8,268 yards both on the ground and through the air, McSorley's slight lead over Hackenberg in the category is certain to become a chasm by the end of the year. So too is Hackenberg's career passing yardage record, now just 1,088 yards away for McSorley.

Yet, locked in on that fast-approaching season and the impact he hopes to personally make on the team's success, McSorley isn't worried about a big concept like a legacy.

He also isn't oblivious to it and understands what it could mean for him in his life after football. Rather, by stepping outside of his present reality in exchange for a moment of big-picture thinking, that future, the one painted so glowingly by teammates and coaches, is one that McSorley can already savor.

"It'd give me a lot of pride," he said. "To be able to come back one day with a family of my own and look back and be thought of in that light, and be able to introduce them to the Penn State tradition and everything that goes with it, to have lived it and gone through it and be that guy, is something that I hope I can do one day."