Note: This is the first in a three-part series previewing several aspects of Penn State’s 2026 football season.
It was within hours after the high of the end of the Penn State coaching search saga had started to fade when a video appeared in my timeline of a slightly-undersized quarterback slinging a football down the field – something that I and probably you had forgotten just what that looked like.
Matt Campbell was bringing that quarterback with him to his new job.
And while I watched that video, it felt too obvious not to realize: That quarterback, Rocco Becht, has a bit of Trace McSorley in him.
And maybe that – or maybe more specifically Rocco Becht – is exactly what Penn State really needs.
It is difficult to have a conversation about this season without going back in time. Penn State, under James Franklin, largely wasted away its chances at top quarterbacks. Will Levis never quite turned out to be the Will Levis that ended up playing at Kentucky. Christian Hackenberg had seen and heard way too many coaches and voices by the time Franklin got his hands on him. Justin Fields, of course, never showed up.
Much of the conversation of why Penn State failed so spectacularly last year was because of the quarterback play. Drew Allar – who statistically had his best year in 2024 – could have easily have gone into the draft as at worst a third-round pick decided to stay. All to end up injuring his leg in the final moments of the Franklin era, becoming a third-round pick — all to have his rebuild process be a major point of the Pittsburgh Steelers offseason.
In the void of Penn State quarterback – much like the brightest year of the Franklin era – there was one quarterback who was different from those almost lab-built proteges that Franklin could never figure out. A kid from Briar Woods wearing No. 9.
That’s the thing about McSorley. He had something that none of those aforementioned Penn State quarterbacks had. It was not moxie. That will forever be a 6-foot, 1-inch tall ginger from Scranton’s word.
But McSorley had that ability that the novelty of college quarterbacks – and what makes them so different from the lab-refined professionals – often have. There were intangibles to McSorley’s game but not in a cliched NFL Draft analyst type way. Rather, a “boy would he be fun to use in a video game” type way.
Penn State played better because of that. McSorley’s style of play – maybe best seen in a crucial run late against Minnesota that arguably started all of 2016’s run or also seen in the fling to Juwan Johnson to make Kinnick fall silent – was not perfect, was not refined, analyzed and dissected. That style of play helped Penn State win a Big Ten title. It helped Penn State win a Fiesta Bowl.
It was playing football in the same way free-form jazz is constructed. It makes no sense yet it does make sense.
And when you watch clips of Becht, there is a bit of that in there.
Last season during a touchdown run against Arkansas State, Becht saw a collapsed pocket, scrambled out and ran into the face of the defense. Yet he still found the end zone and even now when you watch the clip, you go through an emotional roller coaster of a mixture of “Please score” and “sweet Jesus.”
In the Iowa game last year, there’s a jump pass on a crucial third down that he makes that feels all calculated but all freehand at the same time.
It’s the opposite of what Penn State fans got from Allar over the last few seasons, which was a manicured, likely overthought – or rather overtaught – style of play that never had flow to it the way that McSorley or Becht did and can play at times.
And in between those take-the-wheel moments, there are throws from Becht that rival any that Allar tossed in 2025, like the one against Arizona or the back-hip placement on a shot against Cincinnati.
Now that style of play does lead to the downside as Becht turned the ball over 16 times in 12 games last year – when Allar had 13 in his entire career. But it also shows the riskier side of Becht’s style of play that has upside.
While over the last four seasons – three where he was the starter – Becht has three more touchdowns than Allar, Becht also had 13 games with a completion of 50 yards or more. In Allar’s Penn State career, he had just seven games with a 50-yard-plus completion.
A massive part of this equation relies on Penn State’s wide receiver room, which is – even with a new coach – still a question mark heading into the season.
But McSorley and Becht make those around him better – even if they themselves are not the pristine image of QB perfection that thrives at the NFL level.
The conversativeness that emanated from Allar’s style of play was at times successful. But when you watch Becht’s highlights, it’s hard not to ponder just how much Penn State missed that open, free-flowing style of play that makes college quarterbacks truly college quarterbacks. Oftentimes, they are the quarterbacks that at this level make the difference, care-free of worries about the next level.
Maybe that’s what Penn State has really needed, or rather maybe that is what Penn State has been missing.
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