Confidence Level of Portal WRs or Denmark or Gonzalez or other guys?
- Thread starter ryoder1
- Start date
Maybe LBAt the PSU/Iowa wrestling match Franklin greeted Van Ness as he ran off the matt after his big win and Franklin asked him if he can play WR.......
He can throw a beautiful ball maybe 50-60 percent of the time. But he's not consistent with his footwork A) in the pocket and B) in the pocket with pressure. The season-ending INT against Notre Dame was pretty typical -- in the pocket, under pressure, he threw that ball 3 yards in the wrong direction. It definitely wasn't the receiver's fault.
For sure better receivers and bigger receivers would help Allar because they would give him more separation and more height which would overcome some of Drew's accuracy problems. Better receivers adjust to the ball quicker. He was able to throw to Warren because Warren is 6-5 with a huge catch radius and great ball skills. But make no mistake, Allar doesn't locate the ball consistently and that's a lot of the problem with PSU's passing game. They can't trust Allar to throw over the middle and that limits things quite a bit.
And why is that three years into the program? This guy was the #1 QB recruit. And I think the highest rated QB we ever had to come to Penn State. Did we ever think when he first entered the program that after 3 years we would be saying this about him (ie we can't trust him to throw over the middle).
Coaching is part if it obviously. I don't think AK and his schemes are a great fit with the type of QB Drew is.
"But he was a 5 star!" should be on some coaches' tombstones. Isn't it funny how a 5-star sometimes turns out to be only an above-average college quarterback (or worse)? That is just the way it is sometimes.
And sometimes maybe it is the fault of the coaching, or the system. But Coach K is known as someone who is really good at creating a system that is easy for QBs to play in -- that's one of the reasons Franklin hired him. His is a quarterback-friendly system. I think if Drew really thought he might be able to change his career trajectory by working under a different coaching staff, or in a different offensive system, he'd be in the portal.
Really the problem is expectations. If only people could forget the recruiting stars. Allar is a good quarterback, heck he led Penn State to the national semifinals. The glass is way past half full. But be realistic, Allar is not all-B1G and not anywhere close to an NFL 1st round pick or anything. He's a good solid player with limitations.
I just keep coming back to how important mobility is at the QB position. You look at the 4 QBs in the NFL semifinals, they all have spectacular mobility. Allar wasn't recruited by Ohio State (they reportedly "offered" late after he was already headed to PSU) probably because Ryan Day wants QBs who have quick feet and can really run. You look at the best QBs of the playoff teams -- starting with Dylan Gabriel -- they had quick feet.
Athletes like Allar are just not the prototypical QB any more. You want to stop PSU's offense, you just attack the backfield. Allar does a very good job of reading and using his feet but he doesn't have natural quickness and that is a disadvantage running and avoiding sacks -- but also, in his case, it's a big disadvantage throwing the ball because he has trouble repositioning and getting his feet set for a throw, so he's throwing off an unstable base and that leads to location problems.
And yeah, Tom Brady would still be successful in today's B1G and in the NFL but he was a freak -- just fanatical work ethic and unbelievable consistency and precision throwing the ball, plus really quick recognition and release. Brady was, well, Brady.
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Ya Allar is 20 years old but he’s past his peak. Pure gold
