It was an interesting 2023 season for Penn State quarterback Drew Allar. The former five-star recruit made history in some ways, including becoming only the second FBS quarterback to ever throw for 25-plus touchdowns and 2 or fewer interceptions in a season.
However, he also completed less than 60 percent of his passes, and Penn State ranked No. 109 nationally in pass plays of 20 or more yards.
On3’s Andy Staples was recently joined by Clark Brooks to discuss Drew Allar ahead of the 2024 season. Brooks believes that the lack of explosiveness in the passing game for Penn State wasn’t all Allar’s fault.
“High levels of disruption. You cannot mention his name without mentioning the dysfunction around him. He saw a lot of quick pressure. He had to throw the ball away. Some of his receivers ran the wrong routes and he had a lot of drops. If you pull all of those things together — that number of disruptions — the highest in college football,” Brooks said. “So inherently, his bottom line is going to take a hit with that. He’s not going to have the best accuracy in the world. He’s not going to have the best catchability in the world. He’s not going to have the best success rate in the world.”
Brooks did see some things that he liked from Allar. Being careful with the football isn’t exactly a bad thing, even if it does keeps an offense from completing long pass plays.
“Looking at his very conservative style of play, being a caretaker at the quarterback position, he is not throwing the ball into harm’s way, not stretching the field. We’re talking about a guy who did not want to take a pass on a target he knew he could not complete,” Brooks said.
“He negated mistakes better than practically anyone last year… that is not worth nothing. That is a very nice recipe for success for a lot of teams.”
Drew Allar finished the 2023 season completing 59.9 percent of his passes for 2,631 yards, with 25 touchdowns and 2 picks. He also rushed for 206 yards and four scores.
All in all, Brooks wants to see Allar try to continue to take care of the football in 2024 but also open things up and try to make more plays down field in the passing game.
“I just have a little bit of reservations that you have to provide a little bit more potency, a little bit more juice, down field. So I think his anticipation needs to get better. I think his play with instruction needs to get better,” Brooks said
“He was a first-year starter. You’d like to think that he can make some strides there. But gosh, you’re going to have to do a lot of debating with yourself on if that was truly who he is or if that was a reflection of his environment.”
What could hurt Allar in 2024 is the fact that his top receiver in KeAndre Lambert-Smith transferred to Auburn this offseason.
Lambert-Smith is no longer at Penn State after catching 53 passes for 673 yards and four touchdowns last season.
“Look, he’s losing his best wide receiver. His receiver wanted nothing to do with him,” Brooks said. “He would rather play with Payton Thorne. So to me, that speaks volumes.”
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