Imagine the 2016 Penn State football season without Trace McSorley or Grant Haley.
No 36 touchdowns — 29 passing, seven running — from the quarterback. No legendary scoop-and-score against Ohio State from the cornerback.
No nine-game winning streak. No berth in the Rose Bowl. No 11-3 season, no No. 7 ranking.
Without McSorley and Haley, Penn State would not be sitting near the top of football world again.
No kidding.
(I know, I know: No late-game interceptions vs. Pitt or USC. Or dropped interceptions against Northwestern, either. Picky, picky.)
But you get the point: Minus two of the smaller guys on Penn State’s roster, the Nittany Lions wouldn’t have come up big in 2016. Just like Bedford Falls and the old Savings & Loan without George Bailey (which rhymes with Haley), Penn State football would have very likely been much different last season without Grant and Trace.
That thought came to mind on Wednesday night, when the duo was made available to the media for a few minutes after practice. Under head coach James Franklin, custom has it that two players — one from offense, one from defense — are on hand to talk for 10 minutes or so.
The pairing of McSorley and Haley was interesting. At least to me.
FROM VANDY TO PSU
Among the five players that Franklin ultimately brought along from Vanderbilt when he was hired to succeed Bill O’Brien in January 2014, those two have by far made the biggest impact. (The others: Amani Oruwariye, Brendan Brosnan and Chance Sorrell. In three seasons, none has made a start and Sorrell has retired, due to injuries.)
And they were definitely the smallest of the quintet, at least in stature. When they came to PSU, Haley was listed as 5-10 and 185 pounds, while McSorley was 6-foot and 190. Forty months later, they aren’t much bigger. In fact, Haley — a cornerback and also a kick returner in his early days for the Nittany Lions — is now listed as 5-9 and 183. McSorley is still 6-foot tall, and weighs in at 204.
When they flipped to Penn State, McSorley — despite a 55-5 record with three Virginia state titles in four trips to the finals — was not a national blue-chipper. Before committing to Vanderbilt and then Penn State, he was considering Wake Forest and Boston College, with an outside nod to N.C. State. Haley, out of Atlanta with great speed as a running back, attracted offers from Florida, South Carolina and Duke, among others.
But, originally, heading into their senior years of high school, they had selected Vanderbilt. And Franklin. McSorley verbally committed to Vandy on July 13, 2013, and Haley followed not too much later. They were ready to ride the Franklin Train, which was 18-8 over the previous two seasons, and making noise in the SEC.
Then things became derailed. Franklin took the job at Penn State and though he and his people kept in touch with Haley and McSorley, given the scholarship situation at Penn State — sanctions, remember? — nothing was certain.
‘Trace and I had met a couple of times at Vanderbilt,’ Haley recalled on Wednesday. ‘He was the first person I texted’ after getting the news of Franklin’s departure from Nashville to a recovering Happy Valley. ‘We communicated about what was going on. We talked about Franklin and everything about that.’
The duo came to Penn State with some fanfare, but a large amount of it was because they followed Franklin, who had flipped their commitment from his previous institution to his new one. The coach was criticized for that at the time. Which has left a bit of a scar.
On Wednesday, in light of the post-practice appearance of McSorley and Bailey…er, Haley…, I asked Franklin about the impact of them following him to PSU. You had to chuckle at Franklin’s original response, kind of under his breath and with a bit of a grin.
‘You’re trying to get me in trouble right now,’ he said, ‘aren’t you?’
No…but be my guest.
KING JAMES VERSION
But James, being the media-savvy vet he is these days, re-directed the question and answered it this way — meaning he never really answered it:
‘If you look at that first class (which signed Feb. 5, 2014), we were fortunate,’ Franklin said. ‘That first class could have been a real problem, based on the timing of when we got the job. The guys who were already committed and we were able to keep committed, and then the guys we were able to bring in, we’ve gotten a lot of production out of that first class.
‘When you get the job Jan. 17 or Jan. 11 (the day CJF was introduced as the new head coach) or whenever it was, there wasn’t a whole lot of time until signing day. Fortunately for us, rather than starting from scratch, we were able to get involved with guys we already had relationships with.
‘I think Christian Campbell and Torrence Brown are two examples of that as well. We had recruited them and knew them for a long time. That’s kind of a unique story. We called them 11 o’clock before signing day and offered them scholarships, and they committed without ever seeing the place. They came on their official visits for the spring game after they were already committed.’
In addition to Campbell and Brown, both from Alabama, and the Vandy 5, two other players also signed with Penn State after Franklin arrived — Saaed Blacknall and Koa Farmer. Sixteen players from that 2014 signing class, who had originally committed to O’Brien, renewed that commitment under Franklin. Among that group are 2017 stalwarts Marcus Allen, Troy Apke, Jason Cabinda, Mike Gesicki, Nick Scott, DeAndre Thompkins and Chasz Wright. (Others included Chris Godwin, off to the NFL, and Troy Reeder, who transferred to Delaware after the 2015 season.)
But 2016 doesn’t go breaking good the way did if Franklin doesn’t get McSorley and Haley to vacate Vandy for Penn State’s greener pastures.
There, Franklin gave an inch: ‘Obviously, Grant and Trace are two really good examples,’ he said. ‘But that class in general has been significant for us the past three years and going into year four.’
Haley played significantly as a freshman at Penn State. He’s made 22 starts over the past two seasons, with 99 career tackles and three interceptions, and his 659 kickoff return yards as a freshman in 2014 rank third all-time at Penn State. Then there’s the matter of his 60-yard return of Marcus Allen’s block of an Ohio State field attempt last season, the clincher in an 24-21 upset of the Buckeyes — one of the biggest plays in Nittany Lion history.
No Grant Haley, maybe no touchdown. That alone qualifies him for ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ status.
McSorley quietly, patiently bided his time behind Christian Hackenberg for nearly two seasons. But beginning with the 2015 TaxSlayer Bowl, McSorley’s career at PSU has been almost Capraesque. He threw for 3,614 yards as a first-year starter in 2016, setting Penn State single-season records for passing yardage, TD passes and total offense (3,979). No offense to Tommy Stevens, but without McSorley, Penn State doesn’t make it to the Rose Bowl or make second-half comebacks a staple of the 2016 season. Not that Franklin would have jumped off a bridge without him, but McSorley — moreso than even Saquon Barkley — was Penn State’s No. 1 difference-maker in 2016.
REVISITING THE VISIT
Both Sorley and Haley committed to Penn State on Jan. 20, 2014 — a day after visiting Franklin & Co. in their new digs. On their first visit to campus, they had brunch with their parents (Haley’s mother Carla is a PSU alum) and academic counselors at the Allen Street Grill, went to a wrestling match in Rec Hall, toured Lasch Building and visited Beaver Stadium.
It was a whirlwind trip. After all, the players had long been planning a Jan. 24 sojourn to Nashville. Not too long after leaving the Penn State campus, each called Franklin and said, ‘I’m in.’ McSorley did it on the car ride home to Northern Virginia.
‘The first time we came here on a visit we came together at the same time,’ Haley recalled. ‘We were pretty close. And we had an even better connection when we met up (at Penn State). We knew all about coach Franklin and his staff. It was a great atmosphere for us to come into.’
So, Haley was asked, were you and McSorley a package deal?
He laughed.
‘No, we weren’t a package deal. It was our own decision — and our family’s decision. It was a whole bunch of things. How he felt comfortable with the offensive coaches and how I felt comfortable with the defensive coaches.
‘It just worked out to get us both here.’
Yeah, I know. I saw the movie.
