For as good of first impression as Penn State quarterback Drew Allar has made just eight quarters into the Nittany Lions’ season, it’s important to remember — or remind yourself — that he can get even better. To be sure, beating West Virginia and Delaware does not make Allar the second coming of Joe Montana, but you know what your eyes are telling you: Allar can make all the throws and seems comfortable and unflustered on the big stage.
When it comes to improvement, the reality is most of the little things Allar will learn to do better will not always be as evident as the results themselves. Better reading of a defense is the product of film work; more accurate throws often the outcome of a high elbow angle. If you’re looking for something Allar has done better this year than last, look no further than the throws he’s making to the field (the side of the play that includes more of the playing field itself). The difference? Something small but important: footwork.
“I thought last year I caught myself taking multiple drops on the same play and I wasn’t really ready to throw the ball sometimes,” Allar said on Saturday after the Nittany Lions beat Delaware 63-7. “But I think this year the coaching staff really cleaned up everything with me with footwork and when to use certain footwork and stuff like that. And then obviously just being a full year in the offense, you learn all the receivers and you just get that more natural timing down with them as you spend more time with them.”
The results have slowly begun to diversify Penn State’s offense. Allar’s ability to get the ball where it needs to be, and get it there quickly, is unlike nearly all of the quarterbacks to come before him at Penn State. That comes not only from a rocket arm, but a strong grasp already of what Penn State wants to do and a willingness to take what the defense offers up.
As a result, Penn State has waltzed to 2-0 and Allar has completed 43 of his 55 pass attempts, with more than a few drops and a handful of throws Allar could have made but didn’t simply to prove he is human.
“I think where he is unusual for a young player with a pretty sophisticated playbook, I think he knows this stuff cold or knows this stuff pretty darned good, where when he gets into problems, he knows where to go with the ball,” Penn State coach James Franklin said last week. “He can focus on the defense because he knows where everybody is going to be.
“I’ve always said that if you can throw the speed out to the field, it changes a lot of things on your offense because again, that’s where most college defenses, that’s what they’re going to give you. They’re going to give you that wide field out or flat, and he can make that throw with ease, and when you do that, it opens a lot of other aspects of your playbook up.”
Who gets credit for the changes and improvements? Just about everyone in Allar’s orbit. Most of the credit likely goes to Penn State’s coaching staff proper, but also don’t forget Allar’s quarterbacking guru, the Ohio-based trainer Brad Maendler. Maendler also works with Penn State quarterback commit Ethan Grunkemeyer as he enters his senior season as the No. 13 quarterback in the 2024 cycle according to the 247 Network.
It does bring up a different question though, one that seems to have a positive answer. Who gets the final say in how Allar learns the finer details of quarterbacking? There are undoubtedly some universal principles, but between Maendler, Franklin, offensive graduate assistant and former quarterback Danny O’Brien and offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, there’s no shortage of people who have Allar’s ear.
According to Franklin, it comes back to his favorite word: alignment.
“I think it really helps at every position if there’s a relationship there,” Franklin said this summer of positional trainers away from the program. “I think that’s the only way it really works. There must be a relationship there, because if your players are going home to work with a trainer that has very strong beliefs on how things should be done and how they operate, and he’s really spending time teaching things in a very different way than we are, then it’s really in nobody’s best interests. So for there to be a relationship on the front end, maybe while they were in high school and things like that, and even maybe some communication going on, that that trainer saying, ‘listen, I want this young man to be successful, so I want to make sure that I understand what he’s being taught on campus,’ and then try to bridge the gap as much as possible, that’s really important. And I would say, really, I’m a believer in the trainers, really, at every position.
“But I would say that if you’re a high school student-athlete or a college student-athlete and you’re working with a trainer that’s not trying to work in cooperation — and again, I don’t want people to misinterpret. It’s not like these guys are an extension of my coaching staff. I’m just saying that they understand what we are teaching and how we are teaching it so that everybody is putting this student athlete, this young man, in the best position to be successful, that’s important. And if someone is not trying to do that, then it puts the student-athletes in a really tough spot between two worlds, being pulled in two different directions. So I think it’s like anything else. I don’t care what business you’re in, what industry you’re in, how you do about your business, it always starts and end with relationships.”
The good news through two weeks of the season, it all seems to be working.
