Report: Freshman QB to start for Penn State
True freshman Christian Hackenberg will be Penn State's starting quarterback in the opener against Syracuse, ESPN.com reported.
Head coach Bill O'Brien has not publicly announced his starter, but he said during a Thursday night radio show that he and the team knew who the starting quarterback would be on Saturday.
"The team knows," he said on the weekly "Penn State Football Show." "That's all that matters."
Sources told ESPN.com that the choice is Hackenberg, who was ESPN's top-rated passer of the 2013 high school class.
He beat out junior college quarterback Tyler Ferguson, who enrolled at Penn State last January and held a slight edge over Hackenberg early in preseason camp.
O'Brien said both first-year quarterbacks will get playing time Saturday, but the starter will get most of the snaps.
Hackenberg will become just the third true freshman since 1910 to start at quarterback for the Nittany Lions. Shorty Miller was the first in 1910, and Rob Bolden made his debut in 2008.
