During the first week of Penn State’s preseason practice, offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki noticed the trimmer Drew Allar was wearing long pants.
“I told him, ‘Dude, you gotta wear shorts,’ ” Kotelnicki said. “ ’You got great hamstrings now. Show those things off.’ He laughed, of course. He’s so comfortable with all the things that we’re doing.”
Allar is as content as he has been during his three-plus years at Penn State.
He enjoys being mentored by head coach James Franklin, quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien, strength and conditioning coach Chuck Losey, Kotelnicki and the entire staff.
He likes being around classmates such as Nick Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Drew Shelton, Vega Ioane, Zane Durant, Dani Dennis-Sutton and Zakee Wheatley for a fourth season.
And he relishes trying to become a better quarterback.
Those are the chief reasons why he decided last December to stay in college and put the NFL on hold.
“You’re never going to get these days back,” said Kevin Allar, Drew’s father, “when you’re playing with your best friends and living with your best friends. You’re never going to get these opportunities again.
“While it was enticing for him to leave, there were so many positives for him to come back. There was unfinished business in his mind. He wanted to get his degree, get better, grow more and play for a person such as Coach Franklin.”
Allar is the central figure in the Nittany Lions’ quest for their first national championship since 1986. He has a chance to finish his career as their all-time leader in touchdown passes, completion percentage and pass efficiency.
He has been everything that Franklin expected when he recruited him from Medina in northeastern Ohio. He has led Penn State to a 23-6 record as a starter the last two seasons, its first Big Ten title game since 2016 and its first two College Football Playoff wins.
Yet some will point to his struggles in two losses to Ohio State in 2023-24 and another to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, a CFP semifinal in January. His last pass attempt was an interception in the final minutes, which led to the Irish’s game-winning field goal.
Allar said in April that he “was just not in a good state the week after” the 27-24 loss.
“Nobody wants to succeed more than him,” his father said. “Nobody wants to help the team win more than him. It was rough. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It was definitely rough seeing the social media stuff, the reports on TV and all that stuff.
“Anybody would tell you that one play does not define a game, but that one play was at the end of the game.”
Kevin and his wife, Dawn, were proud of the way their son handled his mistake in front of a small army of cameras and recorders after the game. He accepted responsibility. He didn’t blame anyone or anything. He was accountable.
“He’s going to protect his teammates any way possible,” Kevin Allar said. “There could have been other ways to handle that situation, but he stood up there and took it on the chin. That’s his growth and maturity.”
Not long after he returned to Penn State for the spring semester, Drew met with Franklin, Kotelnicki, O’Brien and Losey to design an improvement plan. Allar took the first step by getting into better physical shape. He’s lost about 10 pounds and is down to 235.
“You can just see he’s as athletic as he’s ever been in terms of his movements,” O’Brien said.
Allar and O’Brien spent much of the winter reviewing the 2024 season. They examined the good and the bad, including the two fourth-down completions late in regulation in the overtime win over USC and his fourth-quarter interception against Oregon in the Big Ten title game.
“Some of the stuff was in his control and some of it was not,” O’Brien said. “But the controllable misses, there were a couple of themes that kept popping up and we attacked them in the spring. It was one or two plays in a game.”
Allar and Penn State welcomed the arrival of wide receivers Kyron Hudson, Devonte Ross and Trebor Pena. All three transfers have plenty of ability and experience. Everyone has admired how they’ve conducted themselves.
“Drew’s very comfortable with them,” Kevin Allar said. “You’re adding three veteran receivers to a room with another veteran guy like Liam Clifford. Not only are you getting phenomenal football players, you’re getting quality people who put their heads down and work hard.
“They’re low maintenance and high production. They’re the best people to have.”
Hudson, Ross and Pena are expected to improve a position that hasn’t been great for the Lions since 2021. Penn State wide receivers did not have a single catch in the Orange Bowl, the only time that happened last season to a FBS team other than Army, Navy and Air Force.
This might be the best set of wide receivers Allar has had as a starter.
“I think they’re wired the right way,” O’Brien said. “Those kids love ball.”
So does Allar.
“That kid is constantly looking to find ways to get better,” O’Brien said. “He’s never satisfied.”
He’s thrown 53 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions in his 843 career attempts. He’s a bona fide Heisman Trophy candidate and a projected first-round draft pick. SI.com named him to its preseason All-America first team.
Allar is in a very good place. He has the best backfield duo in the country in Singleton and Allen behind him and one of the top-rated offensive lines in front of him. He’s also working with the creative Kotelnicki for a second year.
“He is so smart and cerebral,” Kotelnicki said. “He’s going to work so hard and prepare so hard. How do you collaborate with him and challenge him? To have those mature conversations about what we do and why we do it, what you saw and why you made the decision you did is really what’s going to help elevate him.
“He’s at the point in his career where he has some autonomy. He doesn’t need to be told what to do and think. He needs to be involved in the thinking process and he has been very much.”
Naturally Allar’s still asked about the Orange Bowl interception. He’s not the first quarterback to make such a mistake (see Trace McSorley, 2017 Rose Bowl) and he won’t be the last. He wants to grow and learn from it so it’s not the defining moment of his career.
“Those flight hours in the cockpit on game day are invaluable,” O’Brien said about Allar’s 29 career starts. “You log all those experiences. He’s been through the big wins and the losses, the big throws and the ones you want back. That molds you.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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