PITTSBURGH — Less than 30 minutes after an abrupt end to Saturday’s game against Pitt, Trace McSorley was standing in the bowels of Heinz Field.
After a quick shower, the Penn State quarterback came out to meet the media. He was facing nearly two dozen reporters, armed with iPhones pointed inches from his lips and TV cameras zooming in to catch his every word.
McSorley’s back was against the wall. Again.
McSorley and his Penn State teammates had spent the afternoon fighting back from a series of deficits in their rivalry game against Pitt, in the teams’ first meeting since 2000.
The Nittany Lions trailed early. And often. 14-0 after Pitt scored two touchdowns in a 47-second span of the first quarter. 28-7 after just 18 minutes and 6 seconds.
Then 28-14 at halftime, 35-21 at the end of the third quarter and, finally 42-39 at game’s end, after McSorley was intercepted by Pitt’s Ryan Lewis in the Panthers’ end zone.
McSorley had a pretty strong day for the Nittany Lions, completing 24 of 35 passes for 332 yards – 13th-highest in PSU history – while throwing a 40-yard touchdown pass to Saquon Barkley and a two-point conversion to DaeSean Hamilton.
His career numbers are good, too – 54 of 93 for 783 yards, with three TD passes, five sacks, 30-of-61 rushing the ball, and that one interception.
That pick was the 93rd pass of his Penn State career, spread out among three quarters of the TaxSlayer Bowl, last week’s victory over Kent State and Saturday’s game against Pitt. It was also his first pick.
He also lost two fumbles to go with that fateful interception, which came on a second-and-9 from the Pitt 31 with 90 seconds left on the clock. An incomplete pass out of the end zone on that play, and Penn State would have lived to try again and, at the very least, been able to try a 48-yard field goal that could have sent the game into overtime.
POST-GAME TRACES
It didn’t happen. And that’s how, after his first collegiate road game as a starter, the redshirt junior from Virginia found himself with his back against the wall. Figuratively and literally.
He responded with flying colors.
Midway through the interview scrum, former Pitt Heisman Trophy winner Tony Dorsett walked by, unseen – but heard — by McSorley. Dorsett was at the stadium to be honored with Pitt’s 1976 national champion squad during the game.
“Hail to Pitt, hail to Pitt, hail to Pitt,” screeched Dorsett. “That’s my boys, Pitt, Pitt.”
McSorley heard the taunt, but didn’t respond. He kept on talking.
“Why so non-plussed?” he was asked.
“You never want to let someone get under your skin,” McSorley answered. “A lot of the jawing from the fans is what you live for. It’s not always something you love, but you know it comes with the territory, especially at the quarterback position, especially in an in-state game that has been a hated rivalry over years. Those are the moments you live for and embrace and not let get to you.”
When told whose disembodied voice that was, McSorley smiled and said, “That’s pretty cool.”
Tight end Mike Gesicki, who caught four passes from McSorley for 47 yards, uses the same terminology when describing his quarterback. “Trace is calm, cool and collected,” Gesicki said. “He’s a winner.”
Q AND A
The questions for McSorley came as hard as the Pitt rush, which sacked McSorley four times, and held him to minus 17 yards rushing on nine carries and sacks.
“Can you describe what happened on the interception?” came the query to McSorley, who had both tight end Mike Gesicki and wide receiver Irvin Charles in the end zone on the play.
“I tried to isolate Mike one-on-one. I threw it out there for him too far and the corner made a great play, bailed out and got under it,” McSorley answered. “I thought I’d give Mike a chance. At 6-6, he’s a big dude. Put it high, let him go jump and make a play it. That was my thought process. Once it was in the air, I realized that I had maybe thrown it too far.”
Four minutes later, the question was asked again.
McSorley didn’t blink. He answered again, elaborating on the worst play of his young career.
“We put the play up this week because they like to do a steal with the backside safety; he kind of worked that way,” he said. “We tried to get him on a double-move. I saw Mike run it and I tried to give our big, athletic tight end a chance and I just threw it too far. That was intended for Mike. I felt like I had put a little too much on it. I saw Mike pick up some steam. As I saw it move in the air I saw the DB getting under it. I kind of had a bad feeling about it as it got down to the point where he made the interception.”
“Will that play haunt you when you go to sleep tonight?” he was asked.
“A good amount,” McSorley answered. “I’ll run the whole game through my head. And I’ll watch the game on the bus on the way back, so I have an idea coming in tomorrow. That play will haunt me, but there also will be other plays I’ll think about and think, ‘If I had just done this differently we would have bene in a better position to pull it off.’”
“What can you do about the turnovers?” he was asked.
“Work on the details, stepping up in the pocket, making sure we are making the right reads,” he said. “We have balls security every day. Three fumbles are not something we can have. We need to start taking that period very seriously. You saw it. That’s what hurt us.”
McSorley is all about composure. He’s a steady and mature presence, in the locker room, on the field, in interviews. It’s who he is – definitely not an excitable boy.
He’s the same after a sack or an incompletion as he was at 3:39 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. That’s when he hit DeAndre Thompkins for a first down on fourth-and-16 from his own 34 with two minutes left in the game on a 34-yard crossing pattern. Only three times on Saturday did McSorley follow one incompletion with another.
PICKING HIMSELF UP
So yes, that interception will haunt McSorley. But two starts into his Penn State playing career, it won’t define him.
It will, however, teach him. He does, after all, understand context.
“Every mistake from the first quarter on is going to affect you in the fourth quarter,” McSorley said. “We made mistakes early and we’re able to capitalize on some positive drives we were having. If we concentrate 100% and treat each play as its own entity and get the details right, the score might be different at the end.
“Instead of a two-minute drive, we’re doing a four-minute drive and trying to run out the clock. Each play determines the game. There’s never going to be just one play that does; all plays will.”
