Sunday Column: Not How They Drew It Up – Lions Again Ride The Fates of Their Mercurial QB

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The many sides of Drew Allar were on display in Beaver Stadium once again on a crazy Saturday White Out night.

For three quarters, there was Frustrating Drew, the one we’ve seen in too many big games to count, holding the ball too long, missing open receivers and, though certainly not the only issue in an offense that looked like it couldn’t advance the ball on a decent high school team, not doing much of anything to elevate it out of that rut, either.

Then, for the briefest of moments—four plays to be exact—we saw Franchise Drew, the guy whose performance matched his stratospheric potential. A perfect strike to his tight end, Luke Reynolds, for 9 yards. Then, after a long run by Kaytron Allen, another strike, to Trebor Pena, for 12 more. And finally a gorgeous rainbow over the entire Oregon defense to Devonte Ross for Penn State’s first touchdown. You remembered why this kid will likely hear his name called on the first day of next spring’s draft, and while most of you was celebrating, the rest of you got mad all over again wondering where this version has been for the last four years.

Quickly, Franchise Drew exited stage left and was replaced by his less precise but probably more admirable cousin, Gritty Drew. This one showed some of the same inaccuracy issues as Frustrating Drew but willed his teammates to complete the fourth-quarter comeback with his legs, his toughness, and his leadership, making them and the massive crowd on hand believe the offense wasn’t truly flawed, just late sleepers.

And then, finally, after Dani Dennis-Sutton had snatched Dante Moore’s 2-point conversion pass in double overtime and given the Lions an opening to seal what would have been a hugely consequential win in so, so many ways, the final version showed up the very next play: Expletive Drew. Last seen throwing a pick that should have been a throwaway in the loss to Notre Dame last January, this guy tried to thread the needle to Reynolds and was intercepted by a transfer from a lesser Indiana program, former Boilermaker Dillon Thieneman. Just like that, the comeback was over, the game was gone, and the narratives that connect Penn State’s beleaguered quarterback and his even more beleaguered head coach added another layer of cement. Drew can’t win the big one. James can’t win the big one. Rinse and repeat.

Except it’s not that simple. It never is. Certainly not on this night, during which Penn State showed it had a national championship-caliber defense and an offense that, for the majority of the game, somehow looked worse than it had in three early-season pastings of hapless non-conference opponents. The line didn’t block. The backs didn’t find much room. The receivers couldn’t escape the shadows of a very green group of Ducks defensive backs. Andy Kotelnicki’s playcalling seemed like a 2-year-old had somehow gotten hold of the Madden controller. And, then, of course, because it’s football, the offense changed and the plays and the blocks and the catches and the quarterback all improved and Penn State’s season, even with a stunning defeat, took on a whole new feel.

We just really don’t know what that feel will feel like yet. Why? Because we never know which version of Allar is going to show up next and what that version will do.

One of the problems with football is that the nature of the game puts too much emphasis, credit and blame on the quarterback position (this column, for the record, has been just as guilty of this as anyone). Those who truly know ball will occasionally try, with a heavy sigh, to tell the rest of us that the receiver mistimed his break or the center missed the protection call, but we don’t care because all we saw was the throw that sailed wide or the sack that we surely wouldn’t have taken had we been in that position. And, though this absolutely wasn’t the case on Saturday, if a quarterback goes 27-of-30 with two smart throwaways and one interception but that interception was a pick six on the final drive, everyone will pronounce that he lost the game, when in reality he was one of the few things keeping his team in the game in the first place.

Allar isn’t the first Penn State quarterback to be the public whipping boy and won’t be the last, but his case is unique for a few reasons. His physical gifts are undeniable, but his desire to protect the football and his team’s revolving door of wideouts of varying skills and consistency levels, not to mention his own wild play-to-play, series-to-series variability, have made it difficult for him to consistently show off those gifts in a meaningful way. He also has been a starter at a time when the program is right on the tipping point between good and great, when college football’s haves are backsliding into the same mud as the have nots due to NIL and the hyperspeed nature of the portal, when Penn State’s NFL talent has been as great as it’s ever been while its year-to-year continuity has been as spotty as it’s ever been.

If Penn State can get 10-12 plays out of Franchise Drew and 20-30 more out of Gritty Drew each game going forward, the path back to the playoff and even the national final is visible. If we see a lot more of Frustrating Drew and Expletive Drew continues to make late-game cameos, a lot of hard work by the defense and any attempts for the offense to gain real traction could be for naught. It feels like Allar can sense all this, which is maybe why he seems to want it so badly and why he seems to toggle between the different iterations of who he is as a player so frequently. He is getting paid a lot of money because of his status as QB1 and his likely future status as QB1 of an NFL franchise. But you wonder just how much of that money he—and the millions who root for his team—would trade to have the best sides of him take over completely.

Or maybe just banish the worst sides to the nether realm.