Drew Allar is a semifinalist for a national quarterback award, but can he win it?
By Josh Yourish
On Tuesday afternoon, the semifinalists for multiple major college football awards were announced, and Penn State quarterback Drew Allar was one of 16 quarterbacks listed as a semifinalist for the Davey O’Brien Award.
The last Penn State QB to take home the hardware as the nation’s best quarterback was Kerry Collins in 1994. Before Collins, Todd Blackledge was the lone Nittany Lions to win the award back in 1982.
Allar has taken huge steps forward in his first year under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, whom James Franklin hired away from Kanasas this offseason, and the former five-star has thrown for 2,006 yards and 13 touchdowns to just five interceptions. However, even with his great improvement, Allar will need to have huge performances across the final three weeks of the season to match the statistical output of the other semifinalists.
Can Drew Allar win the Davey O’Brien?
Let’s take a look at the other 15 QBs who made the list.
- Bryson Daily, Army
- Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss
- Quinn Ewers, Texas
- Dillon Gabriel, Oregon
- Blake Horvath, Navy
- Will Howard, Ohio State
- Kevin Jennings, SMU
- Cade Klubnik, Clemson
- John Mateer, Washington State
- Jalen Milroe, Alabama
- Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt
- Jake Retzlaff, BYU
- Kurtis Rourke, Indiana
- Shedeur Sanders, Colorado
- Cam Ward, Miami
Allar is 48th in the country in total passing yards and 53rd in passing touchdowns. While those raw counting stats aren’t the end-all-be-all and at times don’t tell a very good story of quarterback play, they have a massive impact on voters for national awards, and they should. Five quarterbacks have already surpassed 3,000 yards passing and 18 QBs have thrown for over 20 TDs. Allar would need to average just over 330 yards and 2.3 passing touchdowns per game to even hit those markers, which would still leave him shy of previous Davey O’Brien winners.
Last season’s winner, Jayden Daniels, threw for 3,812 yards and 40 touchdowns with only four interceptions. Allar has no shot of hitting those passing numbers and Daniels had to rush for 1,134 yards and 10 more scores to beat out Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. for the hardware.
Who will win the Davey O’Brien Trophy
It’s likely that if a quarterback wins the Heisman Trophy, they’ll also win the Davey O’Brien. That happened last year with Daniels, but in 2022 Max Duggan won the Davey O’Brien while Caleb Williams won the Heisman.
If we look at the Heisman betting market, we can see that Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel and Miami’s Cam Ward have the best odds among quarterbacks. Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke has the third-best odds of a QB, just ahead of Alabama’s Jalen Milroe. The Davey O’Brien winner will likely come from that crop of four QBs and statistically,3,4 Ward is the best of the bunch.
Ward leads the country with 3,494 passing yards and 32 passing touchdowns touchdowns so far this season, but his Heisman odds took a tumble after Miami’s Week 11 loss to Georgia Tech. Ward would be my pick to win the Davey O’Brien at this point.
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