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As we approach what might just be the curtain call for the Blue-White Game, we need to acknowledge the sheer value it has provided to the Penn State football team in terms of continuing preparations for the upcoming season.

Lol jk it’s a glorified practice.

However, over the years, that glorified practice, which has taken many shapes and forms as the program has undergone leadership changes and college football has, um, changed a bit itself, has had intangible but significant value for the program’s many fans.

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Drew Allar is getting a lot of pub this offseason. The Nittany Lions’ strong-armed, floppy-haired senior quarterback is being mentioned among the best college players at his position for 2025 and his potential at the next level is also a hot topic as the draft approaches. He’ll spend the summer answering questions about what he learned from last season (the disappointing finale against Notre Dame in particular), how he plans to expand his leadership, why Andy Kotelnicki is fun to play for, what Lion legend-turned-assistant coach Trace McSorley has brought to the QB room, et cetera et cetera.

But how much Allar improves, or even how well he plays, will only matter if he gets the help he didn’t have for his first two seasons as a starter.

As we race toward Allar’s final season at Penn State, the elephant in the Lasch Building remains the same: Who in the name of Freddie Scott is going to step up and be an alpha dog in Penn State’s wide receiver room?

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The non-news news of the week in Penn State football land as we creep toward the (final?) Blue-White Game was James Franklin expressing pleasure that the program now has the “alignment” he’s been asking for his entire Nittany Lion tenure.

It’s non-news because, well, in local circles, Franklin has been saying this for a couple of years now, praising AD Pat Kraft and university president Neeli Bendapudi at several public turns for helping bring about this ever-elusive alignment, the definition of which we’ll get to in a second. For national guys, in this case Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman of On3, hearing this stuff for the first time is worth noting and thus, news.

Because, truly, both outside State College, where Penn State finally inched its way into legitimate playoff contending status last season, and inside of it, where every move and utterance Franklin has made since 2014 is dissected and debated, what alignment means for the coach and the program could be a fairly big deal.

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