Penn State quarterback Tommy Stevens has entered the transfer portal and will not return to the Nittany Lions.
Stevens entered the portal on Wednesday, as the Houston Chronicle first reported and ESPN confirmed. Stevens’ father, Tom, told several media outlets Thursday that his son will not return to Penn State.
Tommy Stevens entered spring practice as Penn State’s likely starter at quarterback, but injuries limited him during the session, as they have in recent seasons for the Lions. Stevens has only one year of eligibility left.
“Honestly, I don’t think that he’ll be welcome back at this point if he wanted to come back,” Tom Stevens told the Centre Daily Times. “He’s certainly leaving Penn State.”
Stevens, who had backed up Trace McSorley the past few seasons, competed with sophomore Sean Clifford this spring. Clifford took the majority of snaps Saturday in Penn State’s spring game.
“We want to be able to name the starter as soon as we possibly can, but we are not ready to do that right now and it’s going to need to be more of a true competition,” coach James Franklin said after the spring game. “Tommy has done everything right for four years, there’s been a huge body of work that we’ve seen from him, and I think last year, in a lot of ways wasn’t fair for him because he was playing with an injury, a pretty significant injury.
“Our coaching staff has all the belief in the world in Tommy, our coaching staff understands what Tommy has done and who he can be,” Franklin said. “But we also have belief in the other guys, and we’ve created real good competition in our quarterback room.”