Trace McSorley leaned forward as he spoke, the intensity in his eyes growing as his tone strengthened. The former Nittany Lion quarterback is now done with his NFL career, a decision that wasn’t entirely his. And one of the most competitive quarterbacks the program has ever seen still has some of that fire burning.
“Yeah the phone kind of stopped ringing,” he told the Centre Daily Times. “That’s a hard pill to swallow when it’s not your decision.”
But then his tone shifted, his voice softening as he relaxed back in his seat. The intense quarterback who wasn’t afraid to take a hit to pick up a few extra yards making way for the assistant quarterbacks coach at Penn State who’s tasked with helping players who want to improve like he did when he was a Nittany Lion.
“I didn’t want to be sitting around waiting for the phone to ring,” he said. “I wanted to retake control of my life and where my life was headed. I’m excited about the next part of it. I’ve known I wanted to get into this.”
His recent transition into coaching — or at least the timing of it — may not have been his call, but in some ways it was always preordained. The former Nittany Lion knew he would get to this point eventually.
And now that he’s here, McSorley is ready to ascend the ranks as a coach like he did as a player.
Penn State assistant quarterback coach Trace McSorley and current quarterback Drew Allar warm up to make passes during Penn State football’s pro day on Friday, March 28, 2025.
Penn State assistant quarterback coach Trace McSorley and current quarterback Drew Allar warm up to make passes during Penn State football’s pro day on Friday, March 28, 2025. Abby Drey adrey@centredaily.com
A knack for coaching
McSorley’s foray into coaching was a fairly predictable one. He was lauded for his leadership while he was a Nittany Lion and his coaches saw what was coming when he was at Penn State — even if it didn’t get brought up at the time.
“I can’t recall that discussion ever coming up, but it was always one that I thought was an eventuality,” Akron head coach (and former Penn State offensive coordinator/QBs coach) Joe Moorhead said. “I think a lot of characteristics that determine great coaches also determine great players.”
Moorhead would know. He’s developed several former players into coaches and several coaches into more successful coaches. Joe Brady, one of his graduate assistants, is now the offensive coordinator of the Buffalo Bills. Former PSU QB Billy Fessler is Ohio State’s quarterbacks coach. Michael Shuster, another former Penn State quarterback, is Moorhead’s quarterbacks coach at Akron.
There’s reason to believe McSorley will be another success story with connections to the Akron head coach.
“To me it’s not even a question,” Moorhead said. “Trace is an overachiever who has dominated everything he’s done throughout his entire life. All the things that made him a great player are gonna make him a great coach. To me it’s an eventuality. It’s not, ‘can Trace become a very good full-time Power 4 position coach and then eventually continue to grow,’ it’s just, ‘how long is it going to take.’”
But it isn’t just Moorhead who saw what McSorley could be. The former Penn State quarterback impressed the Baltimore Ravens enough to take him in the sixth round in 2019 and hang onto him for three seasons.
The Ravens and then-quarterbacks coach James Urban had a chance to get to know McSorley as a player and a person during the draft process and were sold fairly quickly.
“I spent a lot of time with him through the process,” Urban said. “The combine, phone calls and we brought him in for a visit. ... I was very, very high on him. He was the winningest quarterback in Penn State history. The intangibles were — you always like to say you can’t measure that — but it was almost measurable with his impact on Penn State.”
Urban, who is now on staff at Penn State as a senior offensive analyst, saw a future coach in McSorley when he worked with him with the Ravens, but didn’t push him down that career path too soon.
He saw the fire was still burning in McSorley as a competitor, and didn’t want him to give up on his NFL career before he was ready. But he made sure to let him know what he thought he could become.
“I joked with Trace for years,” Urban said with a laugh. “This was while he was still playing. ... I stayed in touch with him. And I always said to him, ‘I’m always gonna be nice to you, dude, because someday you’re gonna hire me.’”
McSorley was not ready. He was still a quarterback, not a quarterbacks coach, and wanted to keep training and fighting to stay an NFL QB. His former coach, Moorhead, knows first-hand what that feels like — the internal struggle over the end of a playing career.
Making the transition
Moorhead was a quarterback in his day, too, though his path didn’t lead him to the NFL. But that didn’t make giving it up any easier. Still, he found what McSorley has now found — a coaching career that can be just as fulfilling — and he knows how difficult that journey can be.
“You’re left to reconcile that your identity, for lack of a better term, has been taken away from you and there’s really nothing you can do about it,” Moorhead said. “Your entire life you’ve grown up and you’ve been, in my case, a quarterback, and that’s how you viewed yourself and where you got your validation and your challenges and your success. That doesn’t exist anymore. How do you fill that void in your life? To me, the next best thing to actually being on the field and playing was coaching.”
When McSorley was ready, he had an offer waiting. In fact, he could have had one before that.
Former Penn State offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Ricky Rahne took the Old Dominion head coach position in December 2019 and has been there ever since. A few years ago, he had an opening on his staff and knew one of the calls he was going to make to try to fill it.
“There was a couple years ago when I needed a quarterbacks coach, but he was still playing,” Rahne said. “So I called his dad and (Trace) was kind of bouncing around (the NFL) a little bit. And I asked his dad well, you and I both know that this is the direction he’s eventually gonna go. Do you want me to bring it up to him now? And he was just like, you know I think he still wants to keep going a little bit. I don’t want to cloud him, so I decided not to.”
McSorley was not ready then — and he wasn’t necessarily ready at the beginning of the fall of 2024 when he spent time around the Penn State program. McSorley is a ferocious competitor and couldn’t help but think he was better than some of the quarterbacks getting chances when he wasn’t, but he gave it one more shot.
But the calls he worked for never came, and it became time to make the transition. And those moments last fall, when the staff — including offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki — allowed him to be around the team and learn that side of the program, pushed him to his decision.
“They were super helpful,” McSorley said. “(Penn State head coach James Franklin), Andy in allowing me to be a fly on the wall on some things, be around a little bit and just kind of seeing how I liked it. Even though I didn’t have a role I enjoyed being here every single day.”
Penn State football coach James Franklin talks to quarterback Trace McSorley during the Saturday, September 3, 2016 game in Beaver Stadium.
Penn State football coach James Franklin talks to quarterback Trace McSorley during the Saturday, September 3, 2016 game in Beaver Stadium. Abby Drey
Returning to Penn State
While McSorley had plenty of connections in the coaching industry, there are no guarantees in the world of college athletics. So he positioned himself to find an opportunity by reaching out to coaches he knew — usually waiting until their season came to a close to check in about his chances at a gig.
Shortly after Penn State hired new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles in late January, conversations picked up with McSorley. He reached out to Penn State head coach James Franklin and had discussions about what a role would look like. That’s when the opportunity became solidified and McSorley knew he would join the staff — an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
“It made the most sense,” McSorley said. “Because it’s a great opportunity, it’s around a staff that I enjoy being around and I’m comfortable with. Andy’s a really smart guy and he’s a great guy to learn from. (Quarterbacks coach) Danny (O’Brien) is a young and exciting quarterbacks coach. He’s another guy I can learn from there, seeing how he structures a meeting and everything.”
McSorley will now be tasked with some of what Rahne and Moorhead were tasked with when he was the Penn State quarterback. He’ll be assisting O’Brien and splitting up the position room with him as they try to develop the Nittany Lion signal callers and help them reach their potential. That’s an important part of all of this for McSorley — that he’s not stuck in a back office breaking down film. The hands-on aspect will allow him to develop as a coach and help the quarterbacks in the room.
At the top of that list, of course, is Drew Allar. There are few players in recent Penn State history with as lofty expectations as he had — and still has — at Penn State. And there are even fewer who know what it’s like to be the Penn State quarterback.
Fortunately for Allar, McSorley is one of them.
He’s seen the highs and lows and felt the weight of expectations. He wasn’t the highly touted recruit Allar was, but the spotlight was firmly on him from the 2016 season on after the team’s upset win over No. 2 Ohio State. He knows what Allar is going through and can help him navigate that.
And while Allar is a part of the room and will assuredly get help from the new coach, he will not be his sole focus. McSorley will try to grow the rest of the quarterbacks and help them prepare for what the starting quarterback is dealing with now.
That’s step one at this particular stop in his coaching career — likely the first of many.
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Jon Sauber covers Penn State football and men’s basketball for the Centre Daily Times. He earned his B.A. in digital and print journalism from Penn State and his M.A. in sports journalism from IUPUI. His previous stops include jobs at The Indianapolis Star, the NCAA, and Rivals.