Friday, March 29, 2024
Home » News » Local & Penn State Sports » Penn State Football: As Allar’s Stock Rises, Franklin Talks About Finding Diamond in Rough

Penn State Football: As Allar’s Stock Rises, Franklin Talks About Finding Diamond in Rough

Back when Penn State extended quarterback Drew Allar a scholarship offer, he was rated somewhere between the 447th and 257th best prospect in the nation according to the 247 Network.

Fast forward nearly a year and Allar sits at No. 12 in the 247 Network’s Top 100 prospects list and is rated the top quarterback in the 2022 cycle.

It has been quite the climb for the Ohio native who has seen his stock rise over the last year at an incredible rate. There are various factors in play here of course, a pandemic for one does little for in person evaluations. Summer camps that normally happened were canceled, high school football seasons were limited, coaching visits were all but off the table. Everyone was in a holding pattern.

But that didn’t mean Allar couldn’t improve all the while, and he has, with a 9-0 record so far this season to show for it and a boatload of stats to add to his glowing resume.

There are a lot of questions that come with a prospect like Allar. Is he good enough to keep James Franklin in State College and away from the allure of USC or LSU or TBD? Is he the missing piece of the puzzle to get Penn State over the playoff hump? Sean Clifford and Trace McSorley both put together impressive resumes, but neither are – mechanically or otherwise – elite to the extent of the absolute best quarterbacks college football has seen over the past five or six seasons.

It’s a lot to put on a high school kid’s plate — just ask Christian Hackenberg.

Those answers will unfold in time – don’t forget that Sean Clifford technically has another season of eligibility remaining. That’s another question for later though.

A more speculative question for the moment; how did Penn State even find Allar in the first place? Very good quarterbacks are rarely overlooked. Trevor Lawrence was not a mystery when he committed to Clemson, nor was Justin Fields over the course of his rambling recruitment. Then again eventual Heisman winner Joe Burrow found himself deep on Ohio State’s bench at one point. Nevertheless, here is Allar, once buried deep in the recruiting rankings, now one of the best in the nation.

Asked about how this sort of thing happens, how a player is found before he is known, Penn State coach James Franklin said after practice on Wednesday that several things contribute to Allar’s rise. [As an aside NCAA rule prohibit coaches from speaking about specific recruits before they sign a letter of intent so Allar’s name was never stated out loud, although that was the implied topic.]

“I think it’s a combination of things, right?” Franklin said. “It’s obviously a really good evaluation process and being thorough, but for me to say, you know, that’s the entirety of it would not be correct.”

“I think it’s his development. I think he’s done a tremendous job from the development standpoint, I think his quarterback coach has done a really good job as well. Obviously, going to his high school the other day, I think he’s playing in an offense that also allows him to maximize his ability and show his talents. I think it’s a combination of all those things.”

“And let’s be honest, there’s a skill to this, there’s a talent to this. And then there’s also some luck that goes along with it. I think coach Belichick and I think the Patriots, you could make the argument maybe one of the most impressive organizations in all of sports over the last 15 years, there was also some luck involved. They got Tom Brady in the sixth round. For anybody to say that that was the plan, that they knew what was going to work out would not be accurate. That was something that worked out really well. We were able to get on this young man, I obviously can’t get into the specifics, and he’s just flourishing.”

Pretty soon Franklin will be able to say his name, the early signing period for national signing day less than two months away. And like Fort Minor said, you’ll remember the name. At least that’s Allar’s hope.