Trace McSorley returning to Penn State as assistant QB coach
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Former Penn Statequarterback Trace McSorley will return to the Nittany Lions as assistant quarterbacks coach.
McSorley was a three-year starter for the Nittany Lions (2016-18) and a sixth-round pick by Baltimore in the 2019 NFL draft. He appeared in three games for the Ravens over two seasons and started one of his six games for Arizona in 2022. He was on practice squads for the Bears and Steelers before Washington released him in training camp last year.
Penn State announced McSorley’s hiring on social media Tuesday. He will work with quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien. They’ll have a three-year starter in Drew Allar, who led the Nittany Lions to the College Football Playoff semifinals last season.
DALLAS — Leaders of the College Football Playoff are asking for more information before they decide whether to change the way teams are seeded in the 12-team playoff this fall, CFP executive director Rich Clark said Tuesday following a day of meetings at the DFW Grand Hyatt.
The 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua — an 11-person group called the CFP management committee — are considering a “straight seeding” format this year, which would reward the selection committee’s top four teams with a first-round bye instead of the four highest-ranked conference champions as was the case this past season.
“We laid the groundwork,” Clark said, following a roughly seven-hour meeting. “There’s still some things the [management] committee wants from us, some research we need to do for them on their behalf so they can make good, informed decisions. They do want to make not just data-informed, but informed — they don’t want to go into this on a whim. They want to make these decisions really strong.”
The management committee has to unanimously agree to any format changes in 2025. Last week, at a meeting in New Orleans involving the SEC and Big Ten conferences, both SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said they would vote in favor of a straight seeding model. In that format, No. 3 seed and Mountain West Conference champion Boise State and No. 4 seed and Big 12 champion Arizona State would not have earned first-round byes because they weren’t ranked in the committee’s top four.
This was the first time, though, that the full management committee discussed it in person. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said “it’s too early” to determine if he would vote in favor of changing the seeding.
