Drew Allar didn’t mince words. The week that followed Penn State’s Orange Bowl loss to Notre Dame was immensely difficult. He was tasked with moving on from the most costly mistake of his football career: a game-ending interception to cap a drive that could have sent the Nittany Lions to the national championship. It was all a big, bad dream brought to reality.
He walked off the field in tears. And the next morning, the shadow that hung over his head still lingered. It wasn’t until he returned to the facilities for winter workouts that his mood began to brighten. He was back on the weights, flipping the page on an otherwise extraordinary journey that ended in heartbreak. It was time to move forward.
“It was a long week for sure, just with how everything happened, just a lot of stuff that was out of my control. I was just not in a good state for that week after,” Allar said on Tuesday in his first meeting with reporters since the loss. “But, honestly, once I stepped back in the weight room for this season … that’s when everything started to click for me again.”
The anticipation that flooded Allar’s conscience as he took the field prior to that final drive in the College Football Playoff had returned. It was like a light switch. It’s possible he looked around the weight room and saw some familiar faces. Nick Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Dani Dennis-Sutton, Zakee Wheatley, Zane Durant and more had returned.
There was work to be done.
“I was really excited, just because of the players they are and I know how much they meant to us as a team last year,” Allar said of running backs Singleton and Allen, specifically. “But honestly, more importantly, I was more excited to spend another year with them, just because I would consider them pretty good friends of mine on the team, and they’re really fun to be around.”
Another glance around the room and there was Andy Kotelnicki, back for his second year as Allar’s offensive coordinator. The pair had grown undeniably close over the 17 games and beyond that made up the past season. Penn State’s offense had improved significantly under Kotelnicki’s tutelage, and his maintained presence can only signal better things to come.
A month into Allar’s second spring alongside Kotelnicki and all is proceeding as it should. At this point, Allar knows the offense “inside and out,” more capable of bringing his peers up to speed, like transfer wide receivers Devonte Ross and Kyron Hudson. A look into the practice facilities and it’s not uncommon to see Allar laughing with Kotelnicki, a positive sign of the times.
“I think we’re a lot farther ahead than where we were last year, obviously, just because of having another year with Coach K,” Allar said. “We’re doing a lot more stuff, which I’m really enjoying, and I know a lot of other guys are enjoying. We’re building off the success that we had last year, but also correcting the things that we saw on tape from last year that we need to make corrections to.”
That includes watching the dreaded interception against Notre Dame, something Allar did alongside quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien prior to winter workouts. They dissected that play, as well as the others that contributed to the loss. It may not be easy, but it’s essential in both the learning process and the operation of moving on.
“It comes down to one or two plays a game,” Allar said. “There’s a handful of plays throughout a game that can get us to the position that we want to be in, because, I think we saw it last year, we don’t have a shortage of talent on our team, that’s for sure. Obviously, we have a great coaching staff. So, it comes down to execution, at the end of the day and handling those one-moment calls.
“Just trying to, right now, find, uncover everything that we can. So when those moments come in the season, we’ve already been there before, and it’s kind of like second nature, and it’s not unfamiliar territory for us.”
