Blue White Illustrated

O F F - S E A S O N R E P O R T on display against the second- and third-string defenses. While he seldom goes looking for the spotlight, it does find him sometimes, and for a moment in the Beaver Stadium media room, he was able to appreciate his own efforts. "I think I did a good job," Stevens said. "There is obviously going to be room to improve. I need to watch the film, critique myself. I'm pretty hard on myself. I want the best out of myself, so I need to watch the film before, I guess, I evaluate myself for the full spring. But I feel im- proved. I feel like I've had a much better spring than I did last spring." A co-recipient of PSU's Frank Patrick Total Commit- ment Award, Stevens was singled out by Franklin in his opening statement at the postgame news conference. "I thought Tommy Stevens continued to do good things," Franklin said. "We're excited about him and his development." After the first question, Franklin ex- panded on Stevens' commitment to the team throughout his first two years. His approach has been consistent and he at- tacks each day with purpose, Franklin said, adding that Stevens has provided himself with "a chance to have a very, very bright future" at Penn State if the coaches continue developing him in all aspects of the game. For now, though, his sta- tus on the team remains the same. No matter how strong an outing he had in the spring game, he goes back to work this off- season as Penn State's backup quarterback. As he's proven throughout the past year, however, that shouldn't have any impact on the way he treats each day, each practice and each work- out. "I had to be disciplined," he said. "I had to come to work every day and be prepared, be- cause you never know. So I just try to continue to do that, con- tinue to work as hard as I can. Good things happen to those kinds of peo- ple, I feel like, so I just keep controlling the things I can control and work as hard as I can." ■ WELL-INSURED In Stevens, Penn State's coaching staff believes it has a solid backup behind McSorley. The redshirt sophomore threw for three touchdowns in the Blue-White Game. Photo by Steve Manuel Game, hitting 13 of 21 passes for 114 yards in two quarters of action, with no touch- downs and an interception. Is that a cause for concern? Probably not. McSorley was playing behind a mix-and-match offen- sive line and was without four of last sea- son's top six pass-catchers, as Chris Godwin is off to the NFL, and Mike Gesicki, Saquon Barkley and Saeed Blacknall sat out the game. From all indi- cations, McSorley and his receivers were clicking throughout the spring. "It's definitely been a lot sharper the second year around, the second spring," he said. "We're not getting a feel for it anymore. We know how it's supposed to work. We know the timing, and we un- derstand the timing of all the routes in our offense." As for building depth, Tommy Stevens continued to show that he's ready to step in for McSorley if necessary. His strong performance in the spring game – 17 completions in 24 attempts for 216 yards, with three TDs and no interceptions – was apparently no fluke, but instead a continuation of the performance he put together throughout the off-season drills. Said Franklin, "We're really excited about him and his development." Less clear is whether the Lions have sufficient depth behind Stevens. Jake Zembiec struggled in the spring game, hitting 2 of 8 passes for 14 yards. He was playing against the first-team defense and was under constant pressure, so those numbers don't necessarily provide a fair point of comparison with the quar- terbacks ahead of him. But Franklin also expressed concerns earlier in the spring about Zembiec's physical development, noting that the 6-foot-3, 209-pound

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