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Tommy Stevens has been named the starting quarterback at Mississippi State.

The former Penn State passer left the Lions earlier this year with hopes of finding a first-team job elsewhere, and he found it in Starkville.

Head coach Joe Moorhead announced the news on Thursday.

Stevens beat out onetime highly-regraded recruit Keayton Thompson and others for the job. He considered Illinois, Kentucky, and a few other programs before settling on Mississipi State, where former Lions offensive coordinator Moorhead is entering his second season as the SEC school’s head coach.

“We said the decision making was going to come down to who could create explosive plays, who could minimize turnovers and who could throw the ball with the best accuracy in a consistent manner,” Moorhead told The Clarion Ledger. “Tommy jumped out of the gates strong at the beginning of camp closing into the first scrimmage.”

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With Moorhead and then Ricky Rahne at the controls of the Penn State offense, Stevens was used as the ‘Lion,’ or in other words, a utility man, over the last two seasons. He threw, ran for, and caught a touchdown in 2017, but his 2018 season was marred by an injury that kept him off the field until late September, and his usage was inconsistent from there.

Then, in 2019, health issues caused him to be limited during spring practice, which ultimately allowed Sean Clifford and Will Levis to receive the majority of first-team reps for head coach James Franklin’s program.

Shortly after the Blue-White game in April, Stevens’ father revealed to The Centre Daily Times that his son was moving on, and he landed at Mississipi State in May.

“Being a quarterback in essentially year four, if you want to call it that, you can hit the ground running and not have to go in somewhere and have to learn something completely new,” Moorhead told the Ledger.

Penn State has yet to chose between Clifford and Levis to decide its own starting quarterback competition, but Clifford is believed to have the lead as the team approaches its first contest opposite Idaho on Aug. 31 at Beaver Stadium.

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