Sunday Column: Once The Starting Spotlight Is Officially Allar’s, Smart and Subtle Decisions Must Share The Stage With The Spectacular

Q: Why is Drew Allar like a farmer?

A: He’s been throwin’ seeds all spring and summer!

As Penn State’s 2023 football season mercifully approaches, all eyes are on the Nittany Lions’ rocket-laser-armed quarterback. His teammates have raved about his abilities. Longtime Associated Press beat guy Ralph Russo wondered if he isn’t the most important player in the country. His grrrrreatness is validated by none other than Tony the Tiger!

What’s more, the addition of Allar to the starting lineup (OK, so he hasn’t technically been named the starter…yet) also means offensive coordinator/mad scientist Mike Yurcich finally has a player who will force defenses to cover just about every part of the field. Thought Penn State had a dynamic offense with (current Packers QB2!!) Sean Clifford? Wait’ll they get a load of these guys when Allar is ripping the ball 30, 40, 50 yards downfield.

Here’s the thing, though. Arm talent is a great, great thing for a quarterback to have. And Allar’s size (6-foot-5 with some added bulk and strength) enables him to see the field and provide a stable platform for that aforementioned rocket laser arm. But if arm talent and size were all it took, Anthony Morelli and Christian Hackenberg would have achieved far more at Penn State than Michael Robinson and Trace McSorley. Allar is going to make a bunch of plays that few other quarterbacks can make this season. But it is the plays that a lot more guys have the ability make—but often don’t—that he’ll have to make consistently if Penn State is going to have the type of season that matches his talent.

Fitting a ball into a tiny window to a covered receiver for a 20-yard pickup is all well and good, but so is hitting a checkdown pass to a running back for a 5-yard gain on 2^nd and 13. Dropping a moon ball into the waiting arms of receiver running five yards free down the sideline against Delaware is awesome, but so is throwing the ball out of bounds to avoid a sack on first down against Michigan. Some of the best plays Allar makes this season might be before the ball is ever snapped, when he checks out of a potential disaster based on the coverage he’s seeing, or when he tucks the ball under his arm just before he gets crushed by a blitzing linebacker.

Passing plays that cover a lot of ground are huge assets, not only because they account for big chunks of yardage and points but because they open things up for the running game, and if defenses have to respect both they’re behind the eight ball already. The big strikes, the chunk plays, are probably second only to turnovers when it comes to the most important plays in the biggest games against the toughest opponents.

But it is what happens during the other 70-75 plays an offense runs in an average college game that separates the best teams from the rest. There is no denying Allar lifts the ceiling of the offense and the team in general. It’s what he does to keep the floor high that will determine the Nittany Lions’ fate this fall, if only in the big games.

That extends to Yurcich, who is coming off a strong 2022 campaign as a play-caller after a very “meh” debut at Penn State the year before. Yes, he’ll need to call a superb game if Penn State is going to have a chance to knock off Ohio State or Michigan or both, but where he will truly earn his money this season is as a quarterbacks coach. So far, Manny Diaz has undoubtedly given Allar a bunch of tricky looks during practice, but the looks he gets from Jesse Minter and Jim Knowles will be different, and their players will not only be allowed to hit Allar but be super excited to do so. Allar is going to make mistakes; Yurcich’s job will be to help ensure that he doesn’t make the same mistakes twice and that he learns something each week, even or especially against inferior defenses, that will benefit him the week later (Another part of Yurcich’s job will be to make sure Beau Pribula is ready to the point that another Iowa 2021 disaster doesn’t take place, but that’s another column).

Allar showed a lot of stuff you’d like to see that involved more than just his arm in the spot-duty appearances in 2022. He climbed the pocket while keeping his head downfield. He was poised under duress. He picked up a few spare yards with his legs. There were also moments when he looked, well, exactly like a freshman, many of them followed by sideline discussions with Yurcich or Clifford where you could see the kid was mentally filing things away for later.

Well, later, at long last, has arrived. The stage and the football are Allar’s now, and the splash plays are coming, the inconsistency of the wideouts be damned. It will be the plays in between, though, that determine exactly what kind of fruit all those seeds will bear.