3 Penn State Football takeaways as Will Levis enters the transfer portal

Penn State Football quarterback Will Levis announced Thursday he will be entering the transfer portal.

Penn State football is now down to three scholarship quarterbacks for next season after redshirt sophomore quarterback Will Levis announced he will be entering the transfer portal.

Levis was the second Nittany Lion Thursday to enter the transfer portal, as former four star linebacker Lance Dixon also entered the portal Thursday afternoon.

The redshirt sophomore came off the bench to replace Sean Clifford in week 4 against Nebraska, and almost led a three touchdown come back, throwing for 219 yards and rushing for another 61 in the loss.

The following week Levis was given the starting nod by coach James Franklin, however after throwing for just 106 yards and fumbling twice, was replaced by Clifford as Penn State football was down a few possessions to Iowa.

Levis would never regain the starting job, but was used primarily as a running quarterback in what the Nittany Lions called the “falcon package’. He saw most of his action on goal line and short yardage situations and finished the season with 260 rushing yards and three touchdowns. He threw his first passing touchdown in the season finale rout of Illinois.

Here are three takeaways from Levis entering the transfer portal:

Not much of a surprise

We wrote in our quarterback room breakdown earlier this week that Will Levis was not going to be a good fit in new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich’s offense.

Levis is a dual threat guy who relies heavily on his legs, while Yurcich has had primarily true pocket passers in his past offenses. In his chances to get snaps, Levis has proven he has an incredibly strong arm, however he has not proven he can go through all the reads and dissect a defense and make on-time, accurate throws.

The Connecticut native clearly did not have the trust of Franklin to run a more complex offense, as the passing game was much more opened up with Clifford as the signal caller.

Levis just does not simply have the passing abilities of quarterbacks like Mason Rudolph, Justin Fields or Sam Ehlinger, quarterbacks Yurcich has had at his last stops around the country,

The Penn State Football quarterback room was also going to get more crowded in 2021 as they welcome the arrival of freshman Christian Veilluix, and redshirt freshman Ta’Quan Roberson enters his third year on campus, undoubtedly with an eye on competing for the starting job next fall.

This seems like a move that is beneficial to both sides, as Levis now takes his two years of remaining eligibility to a place where he has a chance to see the field, and the Nittany Lions can get a clearer picture of potentially what the quarterback situation will look like come September.