No, Beau Pribula is not better than Drew Allar: Grading both QBs Week 9 performances

One of the biggest stories of Penn State’s undefeated start to the 2024 season is the emergence of Drew Allar as an elite quarterback in college football under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, but in Week 9 the Nittany Lions needed two quarterbacks to beat the red-hot Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium. 

Allar started the game playing well, but drops and a lost fumble stalled the offense’s progress before a sack at the end of the first half knocked him out for the rest of the game with a knee injury. Beau Pribula stared down a 10-7 halftime deficit and with the help of a Jaylen Reed pick-six, led Penn State to 21 second-half points and a 28-13 road win to get to 7-0 with No. 4 Ohio State coming to town in Week 10. 

With Allar’s injury, Penn State is preparing both quarterbacks like the starter, and hoping that Ohio State is preparing both too. For my part, I’ll grade both QBs' performances in the Week 9 win and see who played better in their half of football. 

With Drew Allar in the game, Wisconsin beat Penn State 10-7, and with Beau Pribula in the game, the Nittany Lions outscored the Badgers 21-3. However, that doesn’t come close to telling the story of these two quarterbacks and their performances because Pribula was good in the second half, but Allar was nearly perfect in the first half and was playing the best football of his career before injuring his knee. 

Allar is a quarterback who typically needs to get into a rhythm before he’s an accurate thrower, but on the road in Madison against a red-hot team with a fired-up home crowd at Camp Randall Stadium, he hit nearly every throw for an entire half. His second throw of the game was a 16-yard strike to Julian Fleming on the run on third-and-5, and his first incompletion was a perfectly thrown ball that Fleming dropped on third-and-1 which stalled the drive and led to the turnover on downs. 

After coming away with no points on the first drive, Allar went right back to work, hitting a nine-yard completion to Harrison Wallace III on the first play of the drive and marching the Nittany Lions right down the field before dropping one in a bucket to Nick Singleton for the lone Penn State score of the first half. 

The half ended 10-7, but it should’ve been 14-7 Penn State, and maybe even more. Penn State’s third drive stalled because a third-and-4 was well covered and forced Allar to check the ball down to Kaytron Allen short. The next drive, with Allar off to a 12/13 start (with a drop) for 126 yards and a score, a holding call wiped off a big Singleton run, backed up the Nittany Lions, and forced a punt after Allar’s worst throw of the game on 3rd-and-12, a down you’re unlikely to convert regardless. 

Even after Wisconsin took the lead, Allar started the final drive of the half with 1:23 on the clock by hitting a casual 18-yard completion to Wallace. Then, on the next play, he was sacked with his knee caught under a Wisconsin defensive lineman, missed his next two throws while limping around between plays, and left for the locker room early. 

Football is a strange game. I could and will argue that Allar played the best half of his career in Week 9 and because of drops and penalties, he only had seven points to show for it. If the version of Allar that Penn State got before his injury is back on Saturday against Ohio State, the Nittany Lions can beat the Buckeyes, but that’s a big if. 

On Pribula’s first drive of the second half, you got to see the immediate impact that the threat of his athleticism makes on the Penn State run game and the immediate limitations of him as a passer. Penn State’s first two plays to start the second half were a Singleton 18-yard run and a Pribula seven-yard run on a read-option, and short passes kept the chains moving, but when Pribula tried to push the ball downfield, his throw to Tyler Warren on a wheel route was low and too far inside to give his 6-foot-6 tight end a chance. 

As he settled in, Pribula’s passing improved, but it was greatly aided by Kotelnicki creating a bespoke offense for his dual-threat QB. 64.3% of Pribula’s passes came off of play-action, compared to 15% for Allar, and his average depth of target was just 5.8 yards downfield compared to Allar’s 7.5 in the game and 9.6 for the season. Pribula attempted just three passes over 10 yards downfield. Kotelnicki doesn’t trust him as a true dropback passer and better defenses will be able to force him into those situations. 

Luckily, Pribula only played two possessions with Penn State trailing before Jaylen Reed’s pick-six flipped the game on its head. Both of those possessions ended in punts after late-down operational penalties. Those will be cleaned up with more experience for Pribula, but likely not immediately if he is forced to play against Ohio State. 

Once with a lead, Kotelnicki could unload the clip with run-game creativity and the play-action game. Pribula was an accurate dart-thrower in the RPO passing game, attacking tight windows over the middle of the field, and he finished with 28 rushing yards on six carries. He produced a 69% success rate on his dropbacks, thanks in large part to his ability to throw on the run to convert in late-down situations. Even the one deep shot that Pribula did hit was a heavily schemed-up play-action deep crosser that got Liam Clifford wide open, but Pribula did a nice job avoiding pressure to get the throw off. 

Pribula’s mobility gives Penn State’s offense a different look when he’s at quarterback and that’s led many to say he’s a better fit in Kotelnicki’s offense, which may be true stylistically, but the best quarterback is always the best fit and that’s what Allar is. Pribula played as well as he could have against Wisconsin, but he was asked to do so much less as a passer than Allar was, and that puts a ceiling on Penn State’s offense, especially against talented defenses like Ohio State’s.