RALEIGH — Manny Stocker got an early jump on his college career. N.C. State will need the freshman quarterback to stay ahead of schedule with the exit of backup quarterback Tyler Brosius.

Brosius, a third-year sophomore, has left the program, Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien said Monday after the team’s first scrimmage.

Brosius will pursue a career in baseball, his father told the Asheville Citizen-Times. Brosius will transfer to Walters State, a community college in Tennessee, to play baseball.

That leaves N.C. State with Stocker and walk-on Garrett Leatham as the only eligible quarterbacks, behind starter Mike Glennon. Pete Thomas, a transfer from Colorado State, has to sit out the season under NCAA rules.

"We’re going to have to keep Michael healthy," O’Brien said. "That would be the best play."

O’Brien said he was "happy with what we saw" out of Stocker in the scrimmage, but did not release individual statistics.

As a team, N.C. State completed 14 of 24 passes for 243 yards with a touchdown and ran 40 times for 104 yards with two touchdowns. The defense had 10 sacks.

Stocker, who enrolled in January after three and half years in high school, is considered the program’s quarterback of the future but the coaches had hoped to redshirt him this season.

Stocker, 6-3 and 200 pounds, threw for 20 touchdowns as a high school senior last year in Coatesville, Pa. and rushed for another 10.

"Manny has a lot of poise," O’Brien said. "The good thing is he came in spring practice so he’s ahead of where you would expect him to be."

The tentative succession plan at quarterback was to go from Glennon to Thomas, who has two years of eligibility remaining, in 2013 and ’14, and to Stocker two years after that.

That five-year plan is complicated by Brosius’ exit, unless Leatham, a walk-on from Apex, is used as Glennon’s primary backup this season.

For a program beset by injuries in O’Brien’s tenure, Glennon was remarkably durable in 2011 and will have to be again.

"That’s up to the offensive line," O’Brien said.

Brosius played in six games in 2011, all in mop-up duty, completing 8 of 13 passes for 66 yards and a touchdown.

Brosius had a productive spring and helped the Black team win the spring game. He went 15 of 27 for 184 yards.

Brosius had an accomplished prep career in baseball for Tuscola High in Waynesville in western North Carolina. He hit 13 home runs with a .447 average as a senior in 2010. He played third base and also pitched.

Brosius is the second scholarship quarterback to leave the program since spring practice. Brian Taylor, a sophomore from Harnett Central, dropped football and will play baseball for N.C. State in 2013.

Linebacker is also quickly becoming a position of concern for the Wolfpack. Sophomore outside linebacker Michael Peek will miss the season with a knee injury, O’Brien said.

Robert Caldwell, a junior college transfer, still hasn’t been cleared by the NCAA. Caldwell, who has the potential to be one of three new starters at linebacker, has yet to practice.

O’Brien also announced that freshman defensive end Joe Wright would miss the season with a knee injury.

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