It stands to reason that this time of year can be a bit tedious for veteran players. Spring practice is helpful for knocking off the rust, but it’s not like guys like Trace McSorley haven’t seen it all before.
Add in limited reps, as coaches look to avoid any major injuries to a major player, and spring ball has a lot of standing around and watching. A lot of just waiting for the actual games to get here.
To be certain there is value to be found in the practices leading up to the Blue White game. McSorley and company can coach younger players, offering up advice and tips they’ve picked up along the way. If nothing else it’s something to do.
This spring is no different. McSorley can been seen taking it all in, watching fellow quarterback Sean Clifford take snaps, running the offense for entire portions of practice.
For McSorley though there is also the matter of chemistry with a host of new receivers and tight ends on the other end of his passes this season. That means plenty of work after practice to work on timing, and understanding what his new targets can and cannot do. Not every tight end can pull off the leaping catches like Mike Gesicki. Not every receiver runs routes like DaeSean Hamilton.
‘Mike is different from Danny,’ McSorley said after practice on Wednesday. ‘Or any of the other tight ends (or receivers) that we’ve got. DaeSean is different from KJ and Saeed is different from Polk. So it’s adjusting to guys, so you’ve got to build chemistry and kind of start from scratch with these guys.’
Of course this hasn’t been an issue for McSorley in pass who threw completions to 14 different players in 2018. And it stands to reason that under new offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne, McSorley will continue to spread the love, especially in a post-Saquon Barkley era.
The good thing for Penn State’s offense, it’s not like Rahne is the new guy on the block.
‘It has been a real seamless transition,’ McSorley said of Rahne. ‘Obviously we had him for the bowl practices which was good and helped me and Tommy, and a lot of the other quarterbacks and really a lot of the other guys on our offense since he has been here this entire time. Maybe not necessarily as our position coach but as our coordinator, he’s been a coach for us.’
‘He knows everyone on this offense and what guys thrive in, what positions they are and what situations where some guys might need to get a little bit better. Every day he comes out, he’s extremely competitive, he wants us to win every single rep and he’s going to push us to be as good as we can be.’
