Future Penn State QB Jaxon Smolik recaps his season and recent official visit
Penn State welcomed future quarterback Jaxon Smolik to campus last weekend for an official visit. Since he committed to the Nittany Lions just before the season started, Smolik still had a lot to learn about Happy Valley and the surrounding area. He said there were a few things that stood out about the trip.
“What we really took away from it was the culture. The whole school there is awesome. It’s similar to Dowling Catholic in some ways. It’s a close group of people there,” Smolik said. “My host was Beau Pribula. He was such an awesome guy. Drew Allar, I got to meet him as well. He’s a great guy as well. I left that visit thinking that overall, Penn State was definitely the right choice for me. I couldn’t have asked for a better school.”
He went on to add, “I felt like I grew my relationship with Coach [Mike] Yurcich. I got to watch film with Danny [O’Brien], too. Overall, I felt like our relationship grew even more.”
Smolik had only visited Penn State twice prior. His first trip was back in the summer for camp, which is when he also earned an offer. However, since he had to get home the following day for a family event, he wasn’t able to stick around long.
He and his family did return in October for the White Out win over Minnesota, however. As expected, he spoke highly of that experience.
“The White Out experience was amazing. There’s nothing like that in college football,” Smolik said. “You can’t replicate that Penn State feeling at any other game in college. It was crazy.”
This past season, Smolik earned all-state honors at quarterback, beating out Iowa State commit JJ Kohl. Although his season didn’t end with a state championship, he said he felt like he progressed as a player.
“I thought my year went well. We opened the season with a loss against the defending state champs, which was tough. You never want to open your season with a loss, but we rallied back as a team and went on a 10 and 0 streak before losing in the semis. I really wanted to win a state championship. I really wanted that to be the way I finished my time at Dowling Catholic, but it wasn’t meant to be,” Smolik said.
“But overall, I thought I did really well. I fixed up some things that I thought I could improve on last year, mainly just my overall maturity within the game. Seeing the field, making the right reads, things like that. I thought I took a good step forward when it comes to comprehending the defense.”
After missing most of last season with a broken collarbone, Smolik finished his senior season completing 64 percent of his passes for 1,967 yards. He threw for 19 touchdowns and just four interceptions, while also rushing for 136 yards and three scores.
Smolik is now set to enroll at Penn State in January. He said he enjoyed getting to know his future roommate more while on campus, as well as his future teammates in the quarterback room.
“Joey Schlaffer is going to be my roommate, so it was a lot fun getting to know him more. I hung out with him a good bit, as well as Beau. I was around other guys, too. Just getting around everyone was fun,” he said.
