Penn State's Trace McSorley could face long wait at NFL Draft

Chalk it up to a senior season that didn’t follow suit from McSorley’s first two years as a starter.

As a sophomore, McSorley passed for 3,614 yards and 29 touchdowns.

As a junior, he nearly mirrored those numbers with 3,570 yards passing and 28 scores. He punctuated that season by throwing for 342 yards against Washington, which earned him offensive MVP honors in the Fiesta Bowl.

McSorley never considered leaving school early, declining to join a draft class that included future first-rounders Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen and Lamar Jackson.

Before the season, one scouting website had McSorley listed as the No. 95 overall prospect in the 2019 class. But he didn’t exactly take advantage of his final collegiate campaign.

His passing numbers dropped to 2,530 yards and 18 touchdowns as he completed a career-low 53 percent of his attempts. One bright spot was he rushed for 798 yards and 12 scores.

Losses to Ohio State and Michigan State midseason crushed the Nittany Lions’ championship hopes, and McSorley’s decline was just as unsettling.

“It wasn’t going like we wanted it early on,” McSorley said at combine. “Then, I started to tense up and press and try to make perfect throws. Going back over the film, I saw that I was skipping guys in the progression and looking for the guy that was the most open rather than, all right, get the ball to this guy and let him be a playmaker.

“Those are things I could have done better during the course of the year.”

A knock on McSorley is his build. He is 6-foot and 201 pounds. Mayfield, who is 6-1, showed last year that smaller quarterbacks can become top picks. And possible 2019 first overall pick Kyler Murray stands just 5-10.

McSorley, though, had 11 passes batted down last year, and an inability to get the ball past the line of scrimmage could scare away potential NFL suitors.

“He obviously doesn’t have that prototypical size, but he’s somebody that’s ultra conservative,” Jeremiah said. “When it’s the money down, when it’s the money time of the game, throughout his career he’s found a way to get it done.”

McSorley points to 5-11 Russell Wilson and 6-foot Drew Brees as other examples of successful quarterbacks who have overcome the perception they were too short to play in the NFL.

“You look at all of them, they’ve got a chip on their shoulder,” McSorley said. “They’ve all been told at some point that they couldn’t do it because of their height, and they just defied that. They haven’t let someone else’s opinion affect who they are.”

As a third-day prospect, McSorley will have to work his way onto a team’s 53-man roster. He won’t be afforded the luxuries of, say, Murray or Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins, another first-round talent.

All McSorley wants is a chance.

“I have a refusal-to-quit attitude, and that’s how I’m going to be at the next level,” he said. “They’re going to have to drag me off the field to not have me be in there.”