When James Franklin took over the Penn State football program in 2014, it was almost universally thought that he was doing so with an NFL first-rounder at quarterback. Christian Hackenberg did eventually get picked in the second round in 2016, but after two disappointing seven-win seasons in Happy Valley.
It was only once Trace McSorley took over that Penn State began to compete for the Big Ten title. The cruel irony of Franklin’s 12th season with the Nittany Lions, which now sits at 3-1 after a 30-24 double overtime loss to Oregon in Week 5, is that he’s stuck with another Hackenberg, and let the next McSorley walk out the door to keep him.
Yes, that’s an oversimplification of the situation with Drew Allar at Penn State, but Allar, like Hackenberg, hasn’t lived up to the billing of his recruitment ranking or NFL Draft expectations. He hasn’t been who Franklin thought he was, or who he needed him to be when he signed the Nittany Lions as a five-star in the 2022 recruiting class.
Drew Allar vs Beau Pribula, does it even matter?
That’s the funny thing about college quarterbacks: some of the best ones would never be a fit at the next level. That was McSorley, standing just 6-foot tall but bringing an element to the run game that Hackenberg never could. This season in college football, that’s Diego Pavia at Vanderbilt and Haynes King at Georgia Tech. They’re not the prospects that Allar and Garrett Nussmeier at LSU are, but their offenses hum with RPO-heavy systems that rely heavily on their mobility and paper over their physical limitations.
Hackenberg was, and Allar is, a top (or maybe was after Saturday night) prospect because of their size and arm strength. They could theoretically make all the throws you need to run an offense on Sundays with the NFL’s tighter hash marks and better athletes. The NFL can bet on those traits and hope it all clicks. Franklin shouldn’t have. Especially not with a player who could do the things that Pavia and King are doing and McSorley once did in Beau Pribula, and he let him transfer away to Missouri.
McSorley and then Sean Clifford brought Penn State to the cusp of the College Football Playoff and the brink of more Big Ten titles. Aside from 2016, they never broke through with rosters that seemed capable of accomplishing more than just another 10-win season.
So, Franklin took a swing at a top quarterback prospect, the type that Ohio State kept beating him with, the type that Clemson and Alabama were winning national titles with. If McSorley and Clifford couldn’t beat the Buckeyes, maybe Allar could. It was the right bet, but maybe the quarterback wasn’t the problem. Franklin needed a savior, Allar wasn’t that, and now Penn State is heading for another year where it wins every game but the ones that matter, and another offseason questioning if it has the right head coach for the job.
Drew Allar's big-game struggles
Allar is now 0-6 in his six games against Top 6 opponents, the very teams he was brought from Medina, Ohio, in the shadow of Columbus, to beat. Much of that blame falls on the quarterback.
In 2023, his first year as the starter, he went 18-for-42 against No. 3 Ohio State, a 20-12 loss. A few weeks later, he completed just 10 of his 22 throws for 70 yards against No. 3 Michigan, a 24-15 defeat. The Peach Bowl against Ole Miss didn’t go much better, again connecting on less than half of his throws, this time with a costly interception.
Maybe he would take the leap in 2025, or maybe he was always the guy who went 12-for-20 with an interception in another one-score loss to No. 4 Ohio State last season. Maybe he never changed from the player who sealed the Big Ten Title Game loss to No. 1 Oregon with a late pick or the one who ended the CFP semifinal loss to Notre Dame, the No. 7 seed, with another.
Now, with Allar’s six losses to Top 6-ranked opponents, Franklin is 4-21 against Top 10 teams since arriving in Happy Valley. Maybe that’s just who he is, no matter who is at quarterback. The reality is, Penn State probably would have lost that game with Pribula at quarterback, too, because for all of Allar’s faults, and there are many, there probably isn’t a player in the country who can save Big Game James from himself.