For just the fourth time over his now 12-year tenure at Penn State, James Franklin is set to welcome two quarterbacks in the same recruiting class. After adding Drew Allar and Beau Pribula in 2022, Franklin hasn’t been overly aggressive at the position, but with four-star Troy Huhn and Peyton Falzone both committing for 2026, it appears that Penn State’s coaching staff is looking to have as many potential Allar replacements on campus as possible for the 2026 season.
Over the weekend at the Elite 11 regional camp at State College High School, the Penn State staff got a good look at both players as their long-term competition to became the future starting QB in Happy Valley, officially began.
Troy Huhn and Peyton Falzone will add intrigue to Penn State QB room
Allar is entering his final season of eligibility in 2025, and behind him on the depth chart are 2024 recruit Ethan Grunkemeyer and Jaxon Smolik, who arrived in the 2023 class. With Smolik injured for much of last season, Grunkemeyer took over as QB2 for the College Football Playoff in his true freshman season after Beau Pribula transferred away to Missouri, so he likely has the upper hand to replace Allar in 2026.
While that competition will be front and center next offseason, a constant underlying storyline will be the battle between Huhn and Falzone. Both will likely redshirt their freshman season at Penn State, which would keep them on the same timeline, and they can’t share the starting job. In the transfer portal era, that likely means that both won’t share the same locker room for long either.
With so much QB movement in the modern game, it’s smart of Franklin to add both QBs in 2026, and according to reports, both displayed impressive traits at the Elite 11 regional camp. Finding a starting quarterback is an inexact science at all levels of the sport, so giving yourself additional bites at the apple is never a bad thing.
Like Pribula, the loser of the Grunkemeyer/Smolik competition could head out the door for a starting job elsewhere, which would push Falzone and Huhn up the depth chart. With both players ranking as four-star recruits, one of the two will likely become the Penn State starter at some point, so while it was just an Elite 11 regional camp, it was also the first round of a long-term QB battle that could determine the future of the Nittany Lions.