Inside McSorley’s return from injury — and how he guided Penn State to its win

Trace McSorley, with a brace still on his right knee, jogged toward a soggy, screaming student section on Saturday night, waved his arms wildly, rung the victory bell next to Tommy Stevens and walked through the south tunnel with a grin and a win.

But two hours earlier, Penn State’s linchpin hobbled through that same cement hallway. In the second quarter, McSorley went down with a right leg injury, missed two series, briefly returned and slowly made his way to the locker room before the half was even over. No one knew if he’d return to the field. No one knew if Penn State would have its senior leader, the heartbeat of its program, for the second half of a crucial clash with No. 18 Iowa.

Well, no one but his teammates, his coaches and himself. McSorley — whose gutty play has earned him endless applause and free beer in State College for a lifetime — refused to exit the game. And like he has so many times before, the fifth-year senior guided Penn State to triumph.

“I wanted to be in there,” McSorley said after the Nittany Lions’ 30-24 win over Iowa. “In my mind, if I was going to be dressed in my uniform and shoulder pads, I was going in. ...There are only so many opportunities left in Beaver Stadium.”

And, boy, did McSorley make the most of his on Saturday. The quarterback’s final stats weren’t perfect; he completed 11 of 25 passes for 167 yards with one touchdown and an interception. But a 51-yard touchdown run — a third-quarter dash that gave Penn State a lead it wouldn’t let up — proved to be the difference-maker.

Earlier on, though, things looked grim. McSorley was twisted to the turf on third down by 6-foot-7, 271-pound defensive end Anthony Nelson as he tried to escape the pocket. Days removed from a Tuesday press conference in which he addressed his squeaky clean injury history, McSorley laid on his back and reached for his right leg. It was a hold-your-breath kind of moment.

“Come on. Get up. Get up,” Penn State wideout KJ Hamler said he thought at the time.

Trainers tended to McSorley, but a medical cart wasn’t needed. He walked off, for the most part, under his own power. That’s when Nick Scott knew his fellow captain would be alright. “You would have to strap him to a chair or kill him for him not to come back in the game,” Scott said with a smile.

That wasn’t necessary. But there was a decision for head coach James Franklin and his staff to make: Do we put McSorley back in the game? Stevens filled in admirably — scoring a 3-yard touchdown after a John Reid interception — and they weren’t certain that McSorley would be the same guy.

However, McSorley said he didn’t have to do any campaigning to get back on the field. He worked out his knee with trainers, running up and down the sideline, zig-zagging to test his lateral movement and hopping on the stationary bike to keep it from stiffening up. Then, after two series of “Tommy Time,” Franklin drilled his field general.

“I told him, ‘I need the whole package. I can’t just have a pro-style quarterback. You can’t just turn into a pro-style quarterback, sitting in the pocket now. I’ve got to have more than that,’” Franklin explained. “I watched him run down the sideline, he did a zig-zag, and I got on the headset and said, ‘Well, he looks pretty good to me, guys.’ We felt like he had earned that right.”

McSorley repaid that trust less than three minutes into the third quarter.

On third-and-2 on Penn State’s 49-yard line, Iowa stacked the line of scrimmage with four down linemen and three linebackers. With man-to-man coverage on the outside, it was straight-up Cover Zero — and offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne made the perfect call. Seconds after ESPN play-by-play announcer Steve Levy said, “Iowa knows that McSorley can’t run the way he did a week ago,” the quarterback kept on a draw and took off.

Running around the outstretched arm of Nelson, McSorley found the edge, burst down the Penn State sideline and aided by stellar downfield blocking by DeAndre Thompkins, No. 9 skated into the end zone. Right guard Connor McGovern, who normally tosses McSorley sky-high after touchdowns, gently picked him up and put him back down.

But McSorley wasn’t this fragile figurine. He was back to his old self. He proved that to himself and everyone in Beaver Stadium.

“It felt good just to know that I could still go out and run,” McSorley said. “That was the biggest question. Throwing wasn’t necessarily an issue. It was the running. And once I was able to go out there and break that one off, it was a big thing for me personally to know that I could do that.”

And it was important for his coaches and teammates, too. Penn State travels to No. 5 Michigan next weekend, followed by a home game against Wisconsin. The Nittany Lions are in the thick of a three-game stretch that will define what kind of season they end up with: A 10-2 mark and a third-straight trip to a New Year’s Six bowl, or a frustrating 8-4 record with a largely meaningless postseason.

When asked if he’ll be available next week in Ann Arbor, McSorley said simply, “I played today. So I don’t see why not.”

As if there was any doubt.

This story was originally published October 27, 2018 at 10:23 PM.