What are we to make of Christian Hackenberg now? What are we to make of the quarterback who, one year after appearing to be Penn State’s anchor, now looks to be adrift?

Explanations are hard to come by. Does he miss departed head coach Bill O’Brien as much as it seems, or are his season-long struggles more the result of a supporting cast markedly weaker than the one that surrounded him in 2013? All of the above?

Christian’s father, Erick, grapples with the question himself. In a telephone interview on Sunday night, he said there are “20 million pieces to puzzle.”

Once a college quarterback himself (at Virginia and Division III Susquehanna), he noted that it is “the hardest position to play” and “most dependent position” in sports. That his son, for as mature as he often appears, is 19 (and indeed doesn’t turn 20 until Valentine’s Day).

“I forget sometimes,” Erick said.

When asked if this has been Christian’s most difficult year athletically, Erick opted for “most challenging.” When asked if his son is as unhappy as he sometimes appears, Erick said rather that he is a “super-competitive kid” and expects a lot of himself, and that his frustrations sometime get the better of him.

“Everyone has a boiling point,” Erick said, while adding that there are times when Christian’s demeanor might be misinterpreted by onlookers.

As the weeks have passed and the younger Hackenberg has spiraled downward, the $64,000 question being asked by some in the fan base is this: Would he actually consider transferring?

“I won’t even touch that,” Erick Hackenberg said from the family’s home in Palmyra, Va. “That’s everyone else’s $64,000 question. The $64,000 question in the Lasch Building (PSU’s football facility) and in this household is how can we get better every week and at the end of the year be in a better place than now -- or three weeks from now, or a month from now, at a bowl game, be at a better place than we are now. Everything else will handle itself.

“I don’t really have a comment on that at all. I think that’s a lot of conjecture. … It’s the outside, looking in. Out of respect to Coach (James) Franklin and the team, out of respect to Christian and everybody else, that’s not fair to a lot of people, so I’m not going to touch that. That’s something that doesn’t even need to be talked about at this point. He loves being at Penn State.”

That, you might notice, is not a denial. It is just another open question, one of many surrounding the younger Hackenberg.

He went 8 for 16 for 93 yards and a touchdown in Saturday’s wretched 16-14 loss at Illinois, career lows for completions, attempts and yardage. He has hit on 44.2 percent of his passes in November, with two TDs and five interceptions.

And looming Saturday for the Nittany Lions (6-5) is the regular-season finale against powerful Michigan State.

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It might be recalled that they were 24-point underdogs heading into the final game of 2013, at Wisconsin. And that Hackenberg keyed a 31-24 upset with a 339-yard, four-touchdown performance, part of a November in which he completed 60.8 percent of his passes, with eight scores and two interceptions.

He was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, the ultimate no-brainer, after clicking on 58.9 percent of his attempts for 2,955 yards and 20 TDs, with 10 picks.

Then O’Brien, something of an offensive guru, left for the NFL. So too did Allen Robinson, PSU’s best receiver last season. Three starting offensive linemen also exhausted their eligibility, and a fourth – guard Miles Dieffenbach – tore up a knee in spring practice.

There was little hint of trouble when the Lions began this season with Franklin in charge. Hackenberg threw for a school-record 454 yards in a victory over Central Florida, and over 300 in victories the next two weeks over Akron and Rutgers.

Since then, he has surpassed 200 yards only twice in eight games. He has four TD passes and 10 picks in his last nine outings, and has not hit over half his passes in his last four.

His overall completion percentage is 55.3. He has thrown for 2,411 yards and eight scores, and his 14 interceptions equal the conference’s highest total. He has also lost three fumbles.

The line’s struggles have clearly had a major impact. Hackenberg has been sacked 39 times, one short of the school’s single-season record, and until Dieffenbach’s recent return there hasn’t been much of a running game to take the heat off. Even so, the Lions are 113th among 125 major-college teams in rushing, averaging 109.5 yards a game. Nor have the receivers been able to consistently get the sort of separation Robinson did a year ago.

Because of the altered offensive cast, Erick Hackenberg believes it is unfair to compare the systems of O’Brien and Franklin, though Christian did that very thing about a month ago, in an SI.com report.

“Coach Franklin’s system is more of a college system,” he told reporter Tim Layden. “Coach O’Brien’s system was upper-level, as pro as they get. I had free reign at the line of scrimmage.”

When apprised of those remarks earlier this month, Franklin said, “I think he probably did have a little bit more flexibility. They also had a different situation. You watch the film last year with Allen Robinson, and there was a lot of different things, and I think that probably grew and changed as the year went on, as they had success in that system.”

Now there are only questions. Erick Hackenberg said he and his son don’t often talk about football, but he does remind Christian that there are things he can and cannot control, and he must concern himself only with the former.

“At the end of the day it’s remembering he’s my son,” Erick said, “and it’s about helping him grow and helping him mature and helping him get through it and not get ruined mentally. He won’t get ruined physically. He’s not getting ruined mentally, and (it’s) just using it as a learning experience, and pulling the positive out of it. There’s always positives. No matter how bad something is, there’s always something good to be pulled from it. It’s finding that, surviving and moving forward.”