In his second year as Penn State’s starting quarterback, Drew Allar took a considerable step forward, beginning to live up to the hype as a five-star recruit while leading the Nittany Lions to 11-1 and a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game. However, when it came to end-of-season recognition, Allar’s performance didn’t receive any, instead being named an All-Big Ten honorable mention.
The three quarterbacks on the three All-Big Ten teams were Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke, and Ohio State’s Will Howard. It’s hard to argue with Gabriel, a fringe Heisman Trophy contender who led the Ducks to a 12-0 regular season, or Rourke who completed over 70% of his throws and threw 27 touchdowns to just four interceptions. However, Howard getting the nod as the third-team All-Big Ten quarterback over Allar is blasphemous.
Now, third-team All-Big Ten is far from the most important thing Allar hopes to accomplish in his junior year, but it’s worth pointing out how much better he’s been than Howard. They’re statistically comparable, but that’s not the best way to evaluate these two players who are leading national championship contenders.
2024 | Drew Allar | Will Howard |
|---|---|---|
Completion % | 71.6% | 72.3% |
Yards | 2,668 | 2,860 |
TD/INT | 18/5 | 27/8 |
YPA | 9.4 | 9.1 |
Yards/dropback | 8.76 | 8.09 |
Success rate | 54.3% | 52.9% |
Howard has put up tremendous numbers, but who wouldn’t while throwing to Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka? The Kansas State transfer was given the keys to a $20 million roster, the college football equivalent of a Lamborghini, and simply asked not to crash it. Yet, in his biggest games, he’s had more than just a fender bender.
Against Oregon, Howard was excellent, throwing for 326 yards and two touchdowns, until he wasn’t, sliding late to let the clock run out in a one-point game. Then, on Saturday against Michigan, with a spot in the conference title game on the line, he threw two interceptions, one from his own four-yard line that led to Michigan’s only touchdown, and another in the red zone, taking points off the board in a three-point loss.
Even when Howard and Allar went head-to-head and Ohio State knocked off Penn State in Beaver Stadium, Howard was the only reason the Nittany Lions were in the game and had a chance to tie it on their final possession. He threw a pick-six on his first pass attempt and fumbled out of the end zone for a touchback, a 14-point swing in a seven-point win that could’ve been considerably more lopsided.
Ryan Day’s incompetence in big games and inability to beat Michigan is mostly to blame for Ohio State missing out on a rematch with Oregon this weekend in Indianapolis, but Howard is just as guilty. Yet, he got the nod over Allar, who was hamstrung by abysmal wide receiver play against the Buckeyes and who carried Penn State to a win with its back against the wall at USC. Allar had two fourth-down conversions on the game-tying touchdown drive before closing it out in overtime, and used his mobility to create them, something he’s surprisingly done better than Howard this season.
One of the biggest reasons that Ohio State moved on from Kyle McCord for Howard was his mobility. With Chip Kelly leaving UCLA to be the offensive coordinator in Columbus, he wanted an athletic quarterback for a diverse run game, and that’s how Howard closed out the win in Happy Valley. However, Allar has outdone him on the ground, rushing for 225 yards and five touchdowns to Howard’s 131 yards and seven scores.
The other reason is that McCord struggled under pressure, but this year Howard wasn’t much of an upgrade in that department. The fifth-year senior averaged just over five yards per attempt on pressured dropbacks, while Allar was the second-best quarterback in the Big Ten with a muddy pocket.
Pressured Dropbacks | Drew Allar | Will Howard |
|---|---|---|
Completion % | 52.9% | 51.4% |
YPA | 8.2 | 6.4 |
TD/INT | 1/1 | 5/3 |
Pressure/sack | 12.0% | 11.1% |
TTT | 3.91 | 3.67 |
Even with offensive line issues because of season-ending injuries to Josh Simmons and Seth McLaughlin, Allar was under pressure more often than Howard and was a much more efficient passer with more effectiveness as a scrambler and a nearly identical pressure-to-sack ratio. Allar didn’t take negative plays and he regularly created big ones outside the structure of the offense.
Drew Allar almost certainly doesn’t care about third-team All-Big Ten, why would he, unlike Howard, he has a game to prepare for, so I took the time to make the argument for him. While he’s likely the most talented, Drew Allar didn’t deserve a spot over Gabriel or Rourke, their statistical resumes were superior, but he’s clearly a top-three quarterback in the conference, and unlike Howard, he’s the reason his team wins close games, not the person to blame for losing them.