The challenge of being Drew Allar is that he came to Penn State facing the pressure of fixing problems he didn’t have anything to do with.
It’s not Drew Allar’s fault Penn State has beaten Ohio State just once under James Franklin. It’s not Drew Allar’s fault that Penn State has not quite gotten over the hump. It’s not his fault that Franklin’s ever lengthening tenure has resulted in a simmering discontent among some portions of the fan base in the face of some of these shortcomings.
And yet, saddled with a high profile recruiting resume and all the boyish charm in the world, Drew Allar is expected to be the one to fix those problems. In a way it makes sense: Allar was a highly rated recruit at the most consequential position on the field. The expectation that a good quarterback will make a team better pretty much comes with the territory.
So there’s no reason to think Allar can’t do all the things people are projecting him to do. Then again, there was no reason to think Allar was absolutely going to do them right out of the gate. The word “prospect” is the implication of what someone will develop into, rarely who they were from the outset.
Nevertheless, the pressure is there, and learning how to embrace that pressure is a skill in its own right. Because no matter how much Allar might stay away from social media during the season or try to block out the noise, he’s not stupid. He gets it. He knows what you think he might be; he knows how you think it has gone so far, too. He also knows what Ohio State and Michigan fans think, his cell phone number leaked in the lead-up to both games, a busy night of tech support as the calls and texts came pouring in.
“If that stuff happens again, I’ll be prepared for it and I know what to do now,” Allar says with half a laugh.
“I think it’s something I kind of learned through high school,” Allar told StateCollege.com. “Obviously when I got here, [the pressure] was magnified just because obviously State College is a lot bigger than where I came from and the Penn State community is just a lot bigger and more global than the Medina football community. So I think it just took adjusting to the scale that it was on, but honestly, I try my very best to just focus on whatever I can do to help this team win get and better —self improvement as well help the team meet the goals that we want to get to … The reason I play football is to go out and win … I have no worries about any outsiders saying like, oh, I suck. I mean, I’ve heard it enough, so it doesn’t really bother me that much.”
There’s another thing to consider about the rise of Allar’s stock: It happened quickly. Allar was not by any stretch of the imagination a player who had been on people’s radar for years and years. It wasn’t overnight, but it was pretty damn close.
In contrast, take, for example, former Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons, who showed up on the 247 Network’s Composite Rankings in November of 2013, some five years before his final rankings were updated before enrolling in 2018. Parsons spent that entire time highly rated and highly thought of. Micah Parsons was a known commodity for years.
Then there’s Allar, entering the rankings in March of 2020 ranked the 423rd best prospect in the nation. By January of 2022, he was ranked third.
That’s quite the change, quite the swing of future prospects. Imagine being in high school and thinking that football is maybe something you’ll be able to do at the next level, that maybe you’ll get better, that maybe a Division I team will come calling, that maybe you’ll play in the NFL if everything works out okay.
And then, seemingly overnight, people are talking about you being the best quarterback prospect in the nation. People are talking about your NFL career as a “when” not an “if.” That’s a lot of change in a short amount of time. A lot of expectations to digest. A lot to get used to.
“It’s definitely something that I didn’t expect when I was in high school,” Allar said. “Especially my sophomore and junior year. But then by the time I got here it was in the back of my mind. I never really thought about it too much though [but] that’s obviously my dream. I came to Penn State to not only be a Penn State Nittany Lion for life, but hopefully catapult myself to that next level. But I know I can’t do that without handling business here first and doing what I’m supposed to do here on the field and in the classroom.”
In his first full year on the job, Allar probably did both better than he gets credit for and not quite as good as people were hoping. It didn’t help that Penn State had one of the program’s more lukewarm receiving corps of the past decade, but Allar wasn’t the transcendent player that some were hoping to see. You caught glimpses of what makes Allar the prospect that he is, but he was not the immediate cure to all that ailed the Nittany Lions.
However, there is a question of how reasonable it was in the first place to expect Allar to just fix everything all on his own. The idea Allar was going to take over the job and suddenly have a Trevor Lawrence-type ascension, dragging Penn State to a national title out of thin air. Was it possible? Sure. Was it reasonable? Hindsight is 20-20, but a brand new quarterback taking a team to a national title is always going to be the most ambitious of projections.
Ask Allar about this — the notion people ought to be more patient with him — and he has a lot on his mind. He notes that he turns 20 this month, a reminder that the weight of the world is on the shoulders of someone who is only a few years removed from being old enough to learn how to drive.
If nothing else, Allar has made peace with the fact that basically all of the quarterbacks slated to go in this upcoming draft, and many of the ones around the country that he keeps tabs on, have not taken direct paths to where they are today. In turn, that he too is allowed to be afforded the time to grow. He lists those quarterbacks off with ease, an accounting of their path to where they are today, a smattering of six or seven quarterbacks that have transferred, sat behind someone else, overcome obstacles, and all ended up where Allar wants to be.
So if they have to take a winding road, Allar thinks to himself, why can’t he?
“I think, honestly, it takes time for kids to develop no matter their age or anything like that,” Allar said. “This is my [thinks] sixth or seventh year playing quarterback full-time. Most quarterbacks are bred quarterbacks from the day one that they start putting on the pads, they’re gonna be a quarterback. That just wasn’t me. And I’m glad that wasn’t me honestly because I felt like that helps me play a lot. I can really understand everything because growing up like I was tight and I was blocking. So at the end of the day, it just takes time and development … sometimes it just takes time and maturity. I haven’t really been immersed in the full quarterback life yet for that long. So it just takes time and I think I learned a lot from last year and I’m doing a lot more this off-season so far which is going to help me hopefully going into spring ball and fall camp.
“I think I do [have to remind myself of the journey some quarterbacks have taken]. I think it’s just kind of natural to look around and see other people and just look at them because everybody’s journey is different at the end of the day,” Allar added. “But you know, most of the time you don’t have a guy that comes in right away like Trevor Lawrence did and just takes over. Like he didn’t start till halfway through the season anyway, so it still took a little bit of time for him. But he stepped in year one and took them to the national championship, but everybody’s journey is different.”
Not giving into the pressure is hard though. Allar didn’t end up being a high-profile prospect and Penn State’s starting quarterback because he doesn’t care. And if you care, you hold yourself to a high standard. The challenge here, of course, is learning to give yourself the grace to make mistakes. That can be hard to do when you consider the stakes.
If you don’t give yourself the grace to mess up, it can be hard to grow, hard to relax, hard to have fun.
“It was more internal, almost putting way too much pressure on myself,” Allar said, reflecting on last season. “I had a couple of conversations with [receivers coach Marques Hagans] throughout this year. One of the things he told me from his experiences playing in college and NFL is like, this is supposed to be fun. You came here obviously to be the best you can be, but you came here because it’s fun to play football and I felt like there were times I probably didn’t have fun just because of however I was playing throughout the week, or whatever the case was. I’d be overly critical of myself and I felt like I didn’t like to just trust myself. I got to this position for a reason. So I’ve just got to continue to build on those things that got me here and trust my instincts and trust the way I can play quarterback, because Coach Franklin brought me here for a reason.
“I just kind of need to keep building off those things that are my strengths and build up those things that are considered my weaknesses in my opinion. And I think just having fun with it because I think I almost made it too much of a grind last year, mentally where I wasn’t taking a step back and just taking everything in. Like this is what I dreamed about as a kid, playing for a big time college football program. I’m supposed to have fun, I didn’t come here to not have fun at a place like Penn State with the passionate fan base we have here and how talented we are as a team. I want to have fun this year and this offseason. I think the whole offense has taken that to heart this year. And I think we’re having a lot more fun competing against the defense and being very businesslike about it but having a lot of fun at the same time.”
Now, entering his second year as Penn State’s starter — no matter how much James Franklin might insist everything is an open competition every offseason — Allar is trying to put an emphasis on the process, the fun and maybe relaxing just a tad. There’s something to be said for rolling with the punches, smiling a little bit more and having a bit more fun.
There’s also something to be said that, while Allar maintained a good relationship with now former offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, that Yurcich gave off a tightly wound demeanor in juxtaposition to the enthusiastic and energetic persona of new coordinator Andy Kotelnicki. If anyone might bring a touch of relaxation to a pivotal moment in Allar’s career, it could be one of the newest coaches on staff.
“Going back and watching the film and seeing I did do some good things here,” Allar said of looking back with a more kind eye. “There were a couple things I’d like to have back like there is every game, but [sometimes] it wasn’t as bad as I thought. So there were a couple of moments where you really didn’t play as bad as you thought, like you need to give yourself some grace sometimes.”
All told the 2024 season is not short on questions as Penn State enters into a world of expanded playoffs and a brand new Big Ten. But if Allar can continue to develop, there’s no reason he can’t become the player fans have been waiting on. Even if it takes a year or two longer than they might have liked.
And if he gets there, will anyone really care how long it took?
