Penn State QB battle still neck-and-neck, Franklin says

With one week of training camp in the books, Penn State coach James Franklin said Wednesday that the two quarterbacks who are up for the starting job are involved in a "heated battle" but that neither one has pulled away.

"It's hard to say, to be honest with you," Franklin told reporters after practice Wednesday when asked whether he was closer to deciding on a starter. "It all depends on the practice. I don't think we're closer to making a decision than we were before."

The candidates are redshirt sophomore Trace McSorley, who saw his only playing time in last January's TaxSlayer Bowl after Christian Hackenberg suffered an injury, and redshirt freshman Tommy Stevens, who has yet to see any action in a college football game.

While Franklin admitted that McSorley has the edge in "the mental aspect of the game," he said that Stevens "has done some really nice things," including his work to close the gap from a mental standpoint.

"I think Tommy has really worked at that and improved since the end of spring ball," the coach said. "That's been a real positive. So that's probably the one thing that jumps out."

Franklin indicated that the decision between McSorley and Stevens will not be an easy one.

"I don't think the quarterback race has gone on very long," he said. "You look across the country in college football, whenever you have multiple quarterbacks competing for a job, I think this is more the norm, in my opinion, in my 22 years [in coaching]. I don't think it's unusual, what's going on right now."

Franklin said the battle for starting jobs on the offensive line involves several players, including those who are battling starters from last year.

"The thing that's changed is, we have some guys right now that are really pushing returning starters for their jobs," he said. "So we do have more guys that we feel we can go into a game with, but it's trying to decide who are the best five.

"We feel really good about that next tier. Now, is that next tier guys that are competing for jobs that haven't played yet? Redshirt freshmen? Redshirt sophomores? Is it returning starters as your backups that have lost their jobs? We've got legitimate competition right now."

On the defensive line, which is being rebuilt after the Nittany Lions lost three starters from last year to the NFL, Franklin singled out 6-foot-2, 286-pound redshirt sophomore Antoine White.

"I think Antoine White's done some really nice things so far in this camp," he said. "He's probably the guy that's jumped out here recently."