Grading Drew Allar’s impressive performance in Penn State’s shootout loss to Oregon

Heading into the season, there was still a significant faction of the Penn State fanbase that would’ve preferred Beau Pribula to start at quarterback over Drew Allar. Now, after Allar’s performance in Penn State’s 45-37 loss to No. 1 Oregon in the Big Ten Championship Game, the Nittany Lions definitively have one of the best quarterbacks in the 12-team College Football Playoff. The program’s biggest fear is no longer if Allar will play poorly, it’s if he’ll play so well that he’ll leave Happy Valley early to be a first-round NFL draft pick. 

Allar’s performance in Indianapolis, despite his two costly interceptions, caught the eye of many NFL draft evaluators as the 6-foot-5 junior is fully living up to his five-star potential. Though, even with all the great throws, tough scrambles, and late-down conversions, those interceptions are hard to overlook. So this outing was a tough one to grade. 

There is one fundamental difficulty when evaluating Drew Allar against quality competition, and it’s his team’s lack of wide receiver talent. The Nittany Lions are severely overmatched on the outside when they play teams like Oregon and Ohio State, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Allar’s two lowest completion percentage games of the season came against – you guessed it – Oregon and Ohio State. 

Now, some of that low completion percentage is because of Allar’s lack of down-to-down consistent accuracy. As a particularly tall QB, he can struggle with his footwork, especially when he’s out of rhythm, and it causes him to miss easy throws. There were a few of those in the game Saturday, but the bigger reason is that his wide receivers just cannot win downfield against above-average defensive backs, and that means plenty of tight-window throws. 

In the first half, the lack of separation cost him a few completions, some on well-thrown balls that his receivers couldn’t hang onto, others, including his first interception were a half step behind on a throw with absolutely zero margin for error. For the entire game, only two Penn State wide receivers caught passes, Harrison Wallace III and Omari Evans, and even Tyler Warren had significant drops. The down-to-down consistency in the offense was provided by the ground game, which produced 297 yards, and the lack of it was offset in the passing game by Allar’s ever-improving creativity. 

For the season, Allar is only sacked on 10.7% of his pressured dropbacks and he wasn’t brought down in the backfield at all on Saturday. He also rushed for three first downs and a touchdown, primarily as a scrambler on those pressured dropbacks, though, two of his best throws came with a muddy pocket. 

First, on the second drive of the game, Allar worked the pocket well and while climbing, fired a dart for a first-down conversion. Then, with the game on the line in the fourth quarter and facing a fourth-and-10, Allar threaded a needle to Harrison Wallace in the end zone while Oregon’s Matayo Uiagalelei had ahold of his undershirt. 

Plays like that aren’t just why the NFL draftniks are falling in love with Allar, but they’re why Penn State had a real chance to win this game despite Tom Allen’s defensive disaster. The run game was massive and ultimately Allar’s two interceptions sealed Penn State’s fate, but he was phenomenal in this game and the fanbase should feel very good about the most important position on the field heading into the CFP.