EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The long and Shorty of it is this:
When Christian Hackenberg takes the opening snap against Syracuse in MetLife Stadium between 3:30 and 4 p.m., he’ll be making history.
A true freshman at starting quarterback for Penn State happens only once every 100 years.
Until today.
Hackenberg, who played for Fork Union Academy (Va.) in 2012, will be just the third true freshman QB to start for PSU since the Nittany Lions started playing football in 1887.
True freshman Eugene “Shorty” Miller started at quarterback for Penn State in the 1910 season-opener and he led Penn State College to a 58-0 victory over the Harrisburg Athletic Club. College football began its season much later, as the game was played on Oct. 1.
Miller was all of 5-foot-5 inches – Hackenberg is 6-4 and 220 pounds. But he was 21-2-2 as a starter, including an 8-0 mark in 1912, when he led Penn State to an 8-0 mark and earned third-team Walter Camp All-America honors. A four-time letterman, he was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame.
Penn State’s other true freshman quarterback who started his first game didn’t have such a grand finish to his Penn State career. But Rob Bolden did begin with a bang.
On Sept. 4, 2010, Bolden joined Miller in a very exclusive Blue and White club, when the Michigan product started against Youngstown State. Penn State, ranked No. 19, beat the FCS opponent 44-14 before 101,213 fans in Beaver Stadium. Bolden completed 20 of 29 passes for 239 yards, with one interception and a pair of touchdown passes. The first came with 1:20 left in the first half, when he tossed a 20-yarder TD to former quarterback Brett Brackett. The two connected again in the third quarter on a 20-yard score.
After that? Not so great. Here’s what followed for Bolden:
Fifteen more starts (for a 12-4 record as a starter, but only 5-4 as a finisher), a concussion, a 2010 in-season battle with Matt McGloin, a threatened and then denied transfer, a 2011 in-season battle with McGloin, a horrendous performance in the TicketCity Bowl (7 of 26, 137 yards, three second-half picks), a career 14 interceptions and just seven TD tosses, and then a woeful performance — on the field and in the film room — during Bill O’Brien’s first spring camp as a head coach.
O’Brien announced just after Memorial Day 2012 that McGloin got the starting job for the upcoming season. Bolden, after an unmemorable career, transferred to LSU last summer. For his part, McGloin, an undrafted free agent, will likely make the Oakland Raiders’ opening day roster.
Bolden redshirted at LSU last season, suffering a knee injury over the final month of the 2012 scheduled. He’s now fighting for a spot on the Tigers’ depth chart.
Penn State wide receiver Allen Robinson will have the unique distinction of catching a pass from two of Penn State’s three true freshman starters. Only Robinson accomplished the feat, in part, while in high school. He and Bolden both played for Orchard Lake St. Mary’s in Southfield, Mich.
Meanwhile, after just five days into his fall semester classes, Hackenberg will take the reins of the Penn State offense.
As just the third freshman to start in Penn State’s 127 football seasons, he’ll no doubt remember that first snap for the rest of his MetLife.
