If you were to capture a time traveler (who was familiar with the game of football) and ask them how many years Drew Allar has been the starting quarterback at Penn State, they might guess a number higher than one.
And that’s not because Allar is dicing up opposing defenses with some arsenal of impressive throws and deft touches (although at times he is). It’s because he looks so calm. For all of the things Drew Allar can do to impress you, there’s nothing that quite matches his ability to look like he has been there before. It’s a poise beyond his years and a polite indifference to the ups and downs of the game. There have been moments, but Allar is rarely emotional when things go poorly, rarely shook by the moment or the stakes.
It would also be fair to tell this undoubtedly groggy time traveler that Allar is about to play in the biggest game of his life, so this test will tell us even more about him. The title of “biggest game” will probably change with time, but right now this is it. This is the biggest moment of his life. And that comes with pressure both internally and external. For all of Penn State’s issues when it comes to beating Ohio State the past decade, having the better quarterback has been among them. Allar, the savior, the difference-maker, the guy who changes the game. When Penn State signed Allar it was because they thought he could be that guy to win this game. That’s a tough cross the bear, even if it’s the result of his own abilities.
The funny part is that Allar’s biggest asset this weekend might not be how far he can throw the ball, but how willing he is to throw it short. Dink and dunk, take what the defense gives you and move on. Allar will throw an interception eventually because he isn’t perfect, but part of the reason he hasn’t yet is simply because he hasn’t made many choices that would lead to one.
“You spend your whole career trying to get quarterbacks to take check downs. Every quarterback wants to throw the corner route or the go route or the post. I mean, who is throwing check downs in their backyard, right? We’ve got a young kid who is starting for the first time, and we can call those plays and he’ll take the check down,” Penn State coach James Franklin said this week.
“To me, he’s doing a really good job of keeping the main thing the main thing, which is protecting the football, trying to create explosive plays when they’re there, but not forcing them. Managing the game. And when you say managing the game, sometimes people look at that as like not a compliment. Like their quarterback on every play, whether it’s a run game, whether it’s RPO, traditional pass, there is a lot on that guy’s plate to make sure we’re not running dead plays. So he’s being graded mentally as well as physically on every single play.”
And Franklin isn’t wrong. If Allar could be an improvement over his predecessor in Sean Clifford, it might be his ability to avoid that one big throw he’d really like to have back. Not so much from the perspective of complete or incomplete, but simply the mistake that cost the Nittany Lions more than they could afford to spend. Allar’s biggest charge isn’t throwing the ball 50 yards a pop; it’s not throwing it 15 yards into double-coverage.
Do that, back it up with a methodical running game and an elite defense and you have a pretty good equation.
“He’s done a really good job. Getting more and more comfortable with that every week,” Franklin added. “I think he’s refining his process of how he watches film, studies the game plan, so I’m very pleased with him. I want Drew to understand this and I want our team to understand this. That’s what I addressed with them on Sunday. That is what we have to do this week. If our process is what we say our process is, we just have to take the next step this week and get better again this week. Not do anything more than that. Drew doesn’t have to be anything more than he was the previous weeks. Just continue to refine the process.”
Don’t be anything more than he was the previous weeks. Somehow an easy and challenging charge at the same time.
