There’s a lot that could be said about Penn State’s 2022 recruiting class as it was signed, sealed and delivered on Wednesday to cap off one of the most important and pivotal recruiting cycles of the James Franklin era.
The class is deep, it has quality players on both sides of the ball and talent at a high level from top to bottom. It’s some of Franklin’s best work as a recruiter — with the class ranked sixth in the nation by 247 Sports — and a testament to his staff’s ability to recruit and maintain commitments of sought-after prospects amidst a chaotic year in college football.
You can talk about the running backs, the defensive ends, the talent at the skill positions and in the trenches. All of those areas will be important to the kind of success Penn State wants to have in the coming years. Football is not a simple game and success is rarely a straightforward journey.
But Penn State has signed solid recruiting classes before, and they’ve all lacked one thing: an elite quarterback.
Enter Drew Allar, a 6-foot-4, 228 pound gunslinger out of Medina, Ohio. He’s a five-star prospect with an eye for the game and an arm that only comes around every so often, which has given him the ranking by many as the top quarterback prospect in the nation.
It’s maybe a bit unfair to link Allar so tightly to the success Penn State wants to have before he takes a single snap at practice, or while three-year starter Sean Clifford eyes a fourth year at the helm in 2022.
It might even be a bit unfair to Beau Pribula, Allar’s freshman counterpart at quarterback, a prospect who might not have the buzz of Allar but is not without his own redeeming set of qualities.
Let us drop the formalities for a moment though. Penn State has come close to landing players like Allar before. Justin Fields is perhaps the most noteworthy example of the Franklin era and the most striking difference in the Penn State/Ohio State series on and off the field. A game is won as a team, but a transcendent quarterback? That wins you titles, and it has been in no small part the difference in the series.
Allar has a chance to be that for Penn State. It’s a wildly heavy mantle to be given at such a young age but he has played himself into this position for better or for worse. And Penn State knows it. James Franklin knows it. Everyone who watches Allar throw knows it. There’s no need to dance around with talk like “open competition” or other platitudes. Allar is what Penn State has been missing, and if he doesn’t turn into something approximating what he seems capable of becoming, “why?” will be a defining question and answer for this era of Penn State football.
So yes, there will be a competition, and yes maybe it turns out that Allar isn’t everything people think he can be. That seems unlikely though, and in turn, everything is linked to this. Penn State will go as Allar does, maybe not this year, but in one not so far away.
“We all realize whether it’s high school, college or the NFL, having a difference maker at the quarterback position and what that’s able to do [is important]” Franklin said on Wednesday. “You talk about franchise quarterbacks in the NFL. You look around college football and you look at the programs that have been able to compete at the highest level. They’ve had difference makers at the quarterback position. So obviously, when you recruit quarterbacks in this class like we have, and they’re highly regarded, it’s a little bit different.”
The next 12 months will be an interesting case of roster management and roadmapping for Franklin, Allar and offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich. The trio will have to balance the future of the program with the likelihood that Allar won’t be starting and in theory could very well find himself behind Christian Veilleux as Clifford’s backup while the freshman gets his feet wet at the collegiate level. Allar is slated to enroll early, which will give him a few months head start prior to training camp, and more importantly spring practice. All the same, Penn State’s daunting opening slate, which features game at Purdue, Auburn, Michigan and a home contest against Ohio State, doesn’t lend itself very well to throwing away first team reps in the present for the sake of the future.
“Obviously, we’re excited about what we’re going to be able to do moving forward and they’re going to play a big, big role in that,” Franklin said of Allar and Pribula. “In this sport, and at that position it obviously carries a lot of weight, like a pitcher in baseball that can dominate games. Quarterbacks have the ability to do that as well. And I think college football has probably become even more quarterback centric than maybe it was 10-15 years ago. The NFL has been like that for a long time. So what I want to try to do is support Drew as much as we possibly can and Beau, throughout this entire process. I think Sean coming back helps, because I think we want to find that fine line of how do we get these guys ready and develop them, but also not put too much pressure on them.”
Time will tell how true Allar’s projections actually are and if he becomes the quarterback Penn State hopes he can be. In the meanwhile, the clock will start to tick toward the moment everyone begins to learn the answer. And for better or worse, much of what becomes of the Franklin era will weigh in the balance along with it.
For now though, celebrate Penn State fans. You’ve seen good recruiting classes before, but Allar might be the quarterback you’ve been waiting for.
