But
regarding the turnaround that
Penn State fans really want to see – the
transition from borderline bowl quali;er
to Big Ten title contender – there
weren't a lot of quick ;xes to be made in
James Franklin's ;rst two seasons as
head coach. The Lions had questions all
over the ;eld, and the most urgent of
those questions concerned the spot
where the team could least aer
John Donovan took the fall for the team's
anemic performance the past two sea-
sons. But that doesn't change the fact
that o o< last year.
"We have a lot of work to do, obvious-
ly, with Coach Moorhead as our new of-
fensive coordinator and Coach
Limegrover as our new oer Memorial
Day, more than two months before the
start
of preseason drills. A year later,
O'Brien clearly had Christian Hacken-
berg penciled in as the man to beat, even
if the decision wasn't o=cially revealed
until opening day. Over the next three
seasons, Hackenberg made 38 consecu-
tive starts, a streak that didn't end until
this past January, when he announced
a>er the TaxSlayer Bowl that he was en-
tering the NFL Dra>.
With Hackenberg gone, there's no
clear frontrunner heading into spring
practice. Yes, redshirt sophomore Trace
McSorley is the most experienced of
the three contenders coming off an im-
pressive performance in relief of the in-
jured Hackenberg against Georgia. In
completing 14 of 27 passes for 142 yards
and two touchdowns, McSorley showed
that he wasn't fazed by the circum-
stances and also that teammates would
respond to his leadership. In a game
that a lot of people – or at least a lot of
Twitter users – wrote off as un-
winnable when Hackenberg went down
in the second quarter, McSorley came
within one play of sending things to
overtime.
By contrast, neither of his competi-
tors – redshirt freshman Tommy
Stevens and true freshman Jake Zem-
biec – have taken a snap in a regular-
season game. Stevens ran the scout
team offense last fall, while Zembiec, a
January enrollee, was finishing up high
school in western New York. When
Hackenberg was making his final regu-
lar-season start last November at
Michigan State, Zembiec was getting
ready to lead Aquinas Institute against
Saratoga Springs in the Class AA state
championship game.
Those biographical details might lead
one to believe that a pecking order has
already been established heading into
spring practice, with McSorley in the
lead, followed by Stevens and Zembiec.
But that's not necessarily the case.
Moorhead is installing his own o
