Gerry DiNardo spilled the beans just three minutes in the Big Ten Network’s hour-long show on Tuesday night recapping its visit earlier that day to Penn State football’s summer training camp.
Drew Allar is Penn State’s starting quarterback — in so many words, anyway.
DiNardo, 70, is a long-time analyst for BTN, and has been to literally thousands of college football summer practices. First, as a player at Notre Dame, where he was an All-American guard for Ara Parseghian and was a starter on the Fighting Irish’s 1973 national championship squad.
Then, he was an assistant at Maine, Eastern Michigan and Colorado, before serving stints as the head coach at Vanderbilt — two decades before James Franklin held the same job — as well as at LSU and Indiana.
Gerry DiNardo knows what’s going on when he walks on the practice field.
And on Tuesday, here’s how he assessed Penn State’s quarterback “battle” between Allar and Beau Pribula, both in their second year, just minutes onto the start of the show:
“Right now, it’s hard to get a feel for Beau,” DiNardo said, “because he’s with the second (group) that sometimes was going against the first defense.
“You know, he never really went with the ones.”
Armed with that tidbit from Gerry, during Franklin’s media scrum with 16 media types on Thursday evening, I asked Franklin about what the former head coach-turned-talking head had said.
In the midst of my question, Franklin reported that “I didn’t watch the show.”
So, I read him what DiNardo had to say — I recorded the show and converted it to a text transcript (which I generously offered to share with Franklin). Then I asked Franklin, “Did Gerry just not see everything or how much run that Beau is getting with the ones?”
To Franklin’s credit, he backed up DiNardo’s observation — one former Vandy guy standing up for another.
“It’s a mix,” Franklin said of which Penn State QB is spending the most time with the first unit. “I would say Drew gets predominant…predominately the majority of the reps. But I think he (Pribula) is getting a few. But I would say Drew is getting the majority of them.”
Franklin has been in no hurry to name Allar the starting QB to the outside world, even though it seems to be a fait accompli that the five-star from Ohio will be the starter come Sept. 2 against West Virginia in Beaver Stadium.
On Thursday night, that game vs. the Mountaineers on national TV was still 23 days away. Plenty of time to announce Allar as the official QB1.
In fact, Franklin has a history of taking his time to make such a pronouncement about his quarterbacks.
In 2016, he named Trace McSorley as the starter over Tommy Stevens on Aug. 24 — 11 days before the season opener on Sept. 3 at home vs. Kent State. (The announcement came a day after McSorley’s 21st birthday.)
And in 2019, Franklin named Sean Clifford the starter over Will Levis on Aug. 23 — nine days before the season opener on Aug. 31 at home against Idaho.
So, it may be a while. Relatively speaking.
But, on Saturday night, it will be a bit more challenging for Franklin to hedge his bets about who the presumptive starting QB will be. That’s because Penn State’s practice will be open to the public and hundreds —maybe thousands — of fans will see which QB is getting how many reps with the first team.
Bet on Allar. Gerry already gave us the inside scoop.
