Almost everyone will point the finger at James Franklin in the aftermath of another loss to a top 10 team for Penn State, falling to No. 6 Oregon 30-24 in double overtime on Saturday night in Happy Valley, but this time, the blame lies squarely with his quarterback.
Allar’s junior season came to an end with a game-sealing interception in the Orange Bowl. His first true test of his senior year ended the same way. After his counterpart Dante Moore led a one-play touchdown drive in the second overtime to give the Ducks the advantage, it took Allar just one play to seal his team’s fate, forcing a throw to tight end Luke Reynolds that was undercut and intercepted by Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman.
The senior QB finished the game 14-for-25 for 137 yards and two touchdowns with the decisive turnover. Nearly all of that passing yardage came in the second half after falling behind 17-3 with several bouts of inaccuracy, and indecisiveness, especially against the blitz. It was the same story that Penn State fans have watched for three years, and it’s time that the Drew Allar defenders, of which I was one the staunchest, lay down our swords.
We can't keep defending Drew Allar
Allar arrived at Penn State as the savior. Finally, the quarterback who could elevate Franklin’s program after years of Trace McSorley and Sean Clifford, beloved college quarterbacks who were never NFL prospects, couldn’t lead the program to the national championship. If it weren’t for the fortunate break of the 12-team College Football Playoff, he wouldn’t have gotten the Nittany Lions any closer. And this year, it looks like he’ll come up short again.
In Year 1 as the starter, Allar led Penn State to a 10-3 record, but looked woefully outmatched by Ohio State, Michigan, and Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl. So, Franklin moved on from Mike Yurich as his play-caller and hired the innovative Andy Kotelnicki away from Kansas.
In Year 2, with Kotelnicki on the headset, Allar led the Nittany Lions to 13-3 with two CFP wins, but he completed just 12 passes in another loss to the Buckeyes, threw two interceptions against Oregon in the Big Ten Championship Game, including a fourth-quarter pick that assured the Ducks’ victory, and finished with another 12 completions against Notre Dame. So, Franklin cleared out his wide receiver room, sending Harrison Wallace III and Omari Evans packing in favor of Kyron Hudson, Devonte Ross, and eventually, Trebor Pena.
Now, in Year 3, armed with one of the sport’s brightest and most creative offenses and a revamped room of veteran pass-catchers, not to mention the country’s most accomplished backfield duo, Allar completed 14 passes against the No. 6 team in the country and lost the game attempting to force a pass to his tight end who he had underthrown multiple times throughout the game.
Drew Allar is not the answer at quarterback. It turns out, he never was. I was blinded by the tools the made him a five-star recruit and ignored the obvious lack of development, inconsistent mechanics, and frantic nature against top competition. I hid behind the play-calling issues, which were real, the lack of wide receiver talent, which was glaring, and dismissed his faults as theirs, because I wanted it to be true. Who didn’t?
Who didn’t want Allar to be the next Ben Roethlisberger, a comparison that seems even more preposterous more than it did when he lit up West Virginia in his 2023 debut. Who didn’t want Franklin to be right for choosing Allar over Beau Pribula, who is now tearing up the SEC at Missouri on one of the country’s most exciting offenses?
Even tonight, it was hard not to get sucked back in by Allar's late-game heroics, picking up tough yardage on the ground and unleashing a beauty of a deep shot to Ross for the Nittany Lions' first touchdown.
The flashes are intoxicating, like his fourth quarter against USC last season, and the potential was overwhelming, and it may still convince some QB-needy NFL team to take a swing in Day 3 of the NFL Draft, but the results are inescapable. Drew Allar is not a good quarterback. At least not one capable of winning the national championship, and that's the bar Franklin desperately needed him to clear.