Why Drew Allar is the best option for Penn State to win football games this season
Drew Allar should be Penn State’s starting quarterback.
Let’s get that out of the way.
No, this is not a “Penn State should focus on the future” take or a “there’s no difference between eight wins and 11 wins” take.
This is about winning right now and putting the best option on the field to do that. He just so happens to also be the likely starter heading into next year, too.
There are multiple layers to this, so let’s start with the difficulties of benching a longtime starter before we move on to how Allar might just be better for the team.
Sean Clifford’s highs and lows
Sean Clifford has been at the helm of the Penn State offense for most of the last four years and more often than not has been a positive for the program. He’s been able to have several high-end moments — like his final drive against Purdue in September to lead the team to a win — but has experienced plenty of the lows.
He is an average to above average Power-Five starter and that’s nothing to scoff at. But he has a high level of volatility to his game. Clifford’s best is great and his worst is putrid and that’s what can lead to a performance against Ohio State that both makes him look like a great player and one worth sending to the bench.
This is not taking out consistency with the hope that a backup will be good enough at his best that he can overcome his flaws. It’s more about replacing a quarterback with good talent and replacing him with one that has elite talent, while also assuming the inconsistencies that come with youth won’t be worse than the ones that have plagued Clifford’s career.
Some will point to the leadership qualities that Clifford provides the team — after all he is a four-time captain. That’s not an issue, and you don’t have to take my word for it. Penn State head coach James Franklin said as much this week when he was asked if Clifford’s captain status would impact the team’s ability to bench him.
“It’s funny that you say that, because I’ve noticed this year, and I actually even think this week, I’ve noticed this year a ton of it,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the COVID six-year deal or what, but I noticed a ton of guys that were voted captain in pre-season, you know, that aren’t starting anymore across the league or opponents that we’ve played. So that really hasn’t factored into any of the discussions we have had. Sean has earned that through the players’ vote and how he’s conducted himself all off-season; so have the rest of the captains.”
The other aspect of being a veteran is the intelligence and preparedness that comes with it. Franklin and offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich have both praised Clifford for those intangibles, mentioning his ability to get the team’s protections right along the offensive line and with the running backs.
Frankly, if that’s the highest praise for keeping a player as the starter, you’ve lost me. If Allar is incapable of getting the team in position to succeed pre-snap, then I would venture to guess he wouldn’t have ascended to the backup role. But he did, and he did it before the season even started and then proceeded to get plenty of snaps throughout the first half of the year to work on that issue — if it even was one.
Who helps the team most right now?
The other part of this is the argument that Clifford gives the team the best chance to get to 10 regular season wins. But does he?
Penn State is going to be favored in its final four games. Indiana on the road, Maryland at home, Rutgers on the road and Michigan State at home. Not exactly a gauntlet for the Nittany Lions. The only way they lose one of those games is if they make mistakes and allow their opposing offenses to get extra chances. How does that happen? By turning the ball over and killing drives with sacks. What does Clifford do that can be frustrating to watch? Turns the ball over and takes unnecessary sacks.
Admittedly, the latter has been less of an issue this year, but the former has been as prevalent as ever. We can walk through and go in depth game by game the rest of the way, but it all really comes down to those issues. We don’t know that Allar won’t have those issues. Maybe he does. But I find it hard to believe that the advantages he presents wouldn’t at least take away some of the issues.
Take the Ohio State game. One of Clifford’s four turnovers wasn’t his fault — the fumble on a strip sack — but the other three were easily avoidable. One was on a forced pass to running back Kaytron Allen that never really had a chance because the coverage was always there. Maybe Allar makes the same poor decision, maybe he doesn’t. The other two are the kind of mistakes Allar has been built to avoid. He has shown the ability to change his arm angles to get passes where he needs them to go. Doing that would have avoided the other two turnovers Clifford had.
One was a tipped pass that the 6-foot-5 Allar likely avoids because he’s just bigger than the current starter. The other was thrown right into the lane of an oncoming defensive end — the kind of mistake that doesn’t happen if the quarterback can quickly lower his angle and flick a side arm pass to an open receiver. Clifford just doesn’t have that versatility in his bag. If he did, that would’ve been the time to display it.
Allar can avoid the type of mistakes that have plagued Clifford’s career.
The redshirt senior has had a successful six years at Penn State. He won a Cotton Bowl and led the program to 10 wins. He helped provide leadership during tumultuous years. He has the team on a path to a New Year’s Six bowl and double-digit wins for the first time since 2019, his first year as a starter.
But that doesn’t win a game today. What wins is playing the best players. And right now there’s more than enough reason to believe that Allar is at the very least on Clifford’s level.
And probably even better.
