Penn State's McSorley says Heisman talk is hard to ignore

Penn State quarterback Trace McSorley admits that it's "definitely an honor to have my name be thrown around" with other candidates for the Heisman Trophy, including teammate Saquon Barkley, and that it's difficult to ignore all the conversation surrounding the award.

But that's as far as it goes for the Nittany Lions' redshirt junior, who set program single-season records last year with 3,614 passing yards, 29 touchdown throws and 3,979 yards of total offense.

"That's something you know is there but you can't really focus too much on it," McSorley said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. "You don't want to lose track of the ultimate goal that you have. The coaches have said that a lot of those awards go to the best player on the best team.

"So our collective mentality as far as awards and accolades go is, what can we do every day to make this team better and push this team to be as good as it can be and really contend with the top teams in the nation? Then all of those things will fall out where they will."

McSorley and his teammates on offense are brimming with confidence in the second season of Joe Moorhead's high-powered attack, particularly after sharpening things in training camp. The expectations are for improvement in 2017 starting with the sixth-ranked Nittany Lions' opener Saturday against Akron at Beaver Stadium.

"I think the confidence level just continued to go up this offseason, especially since we've done a little bit more study," McSorley said. "We continue to learn more and dive deeper into what the offense is. So that's really helped to raise our level of confidence. Obviously the more you know, the more confident you'll be, and you kind of go out and play. Everyone knows and understands their assignments and roles very well."

And the leader who makes sure that assignments are followed and daily practices are consistently at a high level is McSorley. Second-team tight end Jonathan Holland, who often worked with McSorley and the first team during training camp, calls him "a natural-born leader."

"He goes there every day and really sets the standard for how practice should be run, really to a point where we look up to him as one of the biggest leaders on our team," Holland said. "He leads by example, comes out every day with a great attitude, talks to everybody, makes sure everybody is on the same page and how we expect practice to be on a daily basis.

"We have to come out every day and be consistent. He's a perfectionist so when you see him out there doing everything the correct way like he does, you want to go out there and do everything the right way yourself, too."

McSorley said practicing at a high standard is "infectious" among the players.

"I think that's been the biggest difference as far as work ethic and where our leaders on the team are pushing everyone else to be at," he said. "They understand the standard that we want to be working to every day. If you think what you're doing right now is good enough, it's not, and you've got to keep working to get better."

As he awaits the season opener, McSorley recalled some similar feelings of when he started his first career game for the Lions a year ago.

"I've still got kind of a little bit of the same anticipation and excitement," he said. "Obviously with it being a new year, you never know what's going to happen, how the year's going to play out. So it's kind of a little bit of jitters and wanting to get back out there in front of our fans and start playing again."