QB or Not QB? Stellar Supporting Cast Means Success Isn’t Completely Dependent on Passers’ Performance

The reason quarterback is the most important position on the field is that the best of them provide the best chance to create plays when it looks as though no play is there, to beat a blitz or a stunt or perfect coverage with a pinpoint throw or a timely scramble. Much of the excitement that surrounds Penn State coming out of the spring is that the Nittany Lions appear to have at least one of those playmaking quarterbacks ready to roll this fall.

The rest of the excitement, if not most of it, should be based on the notion that if Drew Allar and/or Beau Pribula aren’t fully ready when the season begins, the guys around them should give them time to get there.

Saturday’s Blue-White Game was the first actual scrimmage format for the Nittany Lions since 2019 but it was also still a Blue-White Game, which means any firm conclusions other than that it was the sport of football and that the players on the field will make up the majority of the players who will take the field in the games that count should be avoided.

And yet, we got to see the general makeup of a team that has the potential to be very good on its good days and, perhaps more importantly, still pretty good on its bad days, and there are multiple reasons for that.

Chief among those reasons is a deep and talented defense that gave a slightly shorthanded (more on this in a minute) offensive line all it could handle on Saturday. Adisa Isaac, Chop Robinson and Dani Dennis-Sutton are three outstanding pass rushers, with Zuriah Fisher and Amin Vanover strongly suggesting that Penn State could withstand an injury or two at the position.

The Nittany Lions should continue to get more dynamic at linebacker, with Abdul Carter adding a year of seasoning (and a few more pounds of muscle) and impressive freshman Tony Rojas joining a group that already included Carter, Curtis Jacobs, Tyler Elsdon, Kobe King, and Dominic DeLuca. The secondary, as this blog observed previously, is loaded to the teeth. Manny Diaz has weapons at every position on the field and has no fear of deploying them aggressively. Opponents might catch this defense for a big play or the occasional scoring drive, but most of them will have to earn each point.

It’s not unusual for the defense to be ahead of the offense at this point in the calendar year, and that was the case for much of Saturday. However, there are some reasons to believe that Penn State should have a firm offensive floor in 2023. One of them, left tackle Olu Fashanu, sat out Saturday as a precaution, but when the future first-round pick is in the lineup, the entire unit takes on a different look, and emerging players like Drew Shelton, Landon Tengwall and Vega Ioane, plus the depth the Nittany Lions are developing at the position, should provide a great deal of help to the young quarterbacks.

So too should the guys they’ll be handing the ball to. In Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, Penn State has two running backs who will help keep the offense out of third and longs, or even many third downs at all. The Nittany Lions’ running attack had grown so stagnant during the 2020 and 2021 seasons that even marginal gains by those two freshmen seemed impressive last season, and given the strides they made as the year went on and the expected improvement of the offensive line, it’s hard to imagine the running game not continuing to progress. And a good running game travels, against defenses both porous and stingy and on fields both dry and slippery.

Key cogs in any quarterback’s development are reliable wide receivers, and this might be the area with the biggest question marks even after an encouraging collective performance on Saturday. Omari Evans had five grabs for 80 yards and the game’s only touchdown, while slot man Kaden Saunders had a few quality plays as well. The expected leaders of this group, KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Tre Wallace, had quiet afternoons but will likely see the lion’s share of targets this fall. How well they mesh with Allar and vice versa will determine how potent the passing attack can be, but if the running game and defense are doing much of the heavy lifting, they may only need a few big splash plays for game for Penn State to thrive.

There are a lot of ways to win football games, and while a quarterback turning nothing into something on third down after third down is one of those ways, a vastly preferred method is to put the quarterback continuously into low-pressure situations, where he can pick up first downs with a stretch play rather than a 15-yard out, where he can throw a pass away on third down and know that a solid punt and his defense will have his back. On Saturday and throughout the spring, Allar and Pribula both showed that they have the potential to become quarterbacks that can pull wins out of the fire but also that, at present, they have much to learn about playing the game at this level. Not every young quarterback has the luxury of a team around him that can let him figure those things out while winning at the same time.

If form holds across the board at other positions for Penn State, the winner of this quarterback battle ought to be able to do just that.