Former Penn State football QB Tommy Stevens considered earlier transfer
Mississippi State quarterback Tommy Stevens left Penn State football in 2019, but recently, he admitted it almost happened earlier.
Times were tough back in 2016 for former Penn State football quarterback, Tommy Stevens. The former three-star recruit was going to be offered an opportunity to start for the Nittany Lions. But first — he had to engage in a battle with another fellow three-star recruit, Trace McSorley.
At the time, Stevens and McSorley were just some young quarterbacks who didn’t have much of a reputation not only within college football — but within Happy Valley as well. Nobody knew what McSorley was going to become. And Stevens had the opportunity to beat him out.
We all know the story though, as it is similar to what happened with this year’s quarterbacks. When head coach James Franklin named Sean Clifford the starter, he mentioned that he wanted to roll with the quarterback that had seniority at the position.
Well, the response was the same back in 2016 when Franklin opted to name McSorley the starter over Stevens. He did it simply because Trace came in a year before Tommy Stevens did. At that point, Stevens could’ve considered leaving the program, but he didn’t — at least, not yet.
Why did Stevens decide to leave?
So Stevens decided to stick around as a backup for the 2016 season up until this year. He patiently waited for his opportunity to become the starter when McSorley was gone, and the time was almost here. In 2019, Stevens expected to be Penn State’s next starting passer.
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However, Coach Franklin wouldn’t give him his word. As Franklin had high hopes for the redshirt sophomore Sean Clifford, he wanted to ensure both quarterbacks got a solid shot for the job. That’s when Stevens decided to up and leave for Mississippi State.
Many argued that Stevens was afraid of the competition, so he packed up and ran. Recently, on a podcast with Adam Breneman, Stevens went into detail explaining that wasn’t the case.
The senior quarterback believes that he could’ve and should’ve been named starting quarterback based off experience and skill alone. But the thought of Penn State sticking with the younger guy in order to build him up for a long-term plan was bound to happen — leaving Stevens in the dust as the backup once again.
Knowing he wanted to be able to show the football world what he’s got, it only made sense to take his talents elsewhere to avoid that kind of situation. Stevens made it a point that if he were really scared of competition, he would’ve left in 2016 after losing the spot out to McSorley.
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At that time, he had the same thoughts of the long-term plan though. Knowing that McSorley was successful and bound to start for Penn State the next few years, Stevens was already considering a move elsewhere for a better opportunity for himself in 2017. But he ended up staying.
His loyalty towards Penn State was expiring though. Since Franklin and the rest of the coaching staff weren’t immediately jumping towards the idea of naming Stevens the starter, he took his talents elsewhere for 2019. Now, we’ll never know what would’ve happened if Stevens stayed. But at least we now know why he left.