Is Allar Worth First Round Draft Hype?

On the other hand, its hard to ignore Allar’s poor performances in Penn State’s three biggest games. Against Ohio State, Michigan, and against Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl, Allar completed less than 50% of his passes in each and picking up three garbage time touchdowns in each game. You take away each of those touchdowns, Allar’s only touchdown pass was the short Theo Johnson touchdown in the first quarter of the Peach Bowl.

Is Allar fully to blame for his tough performances? No.

Penn State has failed to adequately support Allar at wide receiver and it seems 2024 may be a rerun of 2023 in that regard.

Leading wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith hit the transfer portal to Auburn. Some might say it is a major loss for Penn State, but in the Nittany Lions final four games (including the Peach Bowl), Lambert-Smith had two total receptions for 28 yards. It seems Penn State had moved on from Lambert-Smith before he made it official.

Penn State had wide receiver Julian Fleming opposite Allar in the team’s annual spring game, but the effort to build chemistry with receivers Harrison Wallace III and Kaden Saunders was evident.

Losing three offensive lineman to the NFL Draft always hurts especially a player with the caliber of Olu Fashanu, but the Nittany Lions are hoping former five-star offensive lineman Nolan Rucci and J’Ven Williams are solutions and Drew Shelton is healthy.

Allar should enjoy one of the deepest running back rooms in the country with Nicholas Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Cam Wallace, and incoming four-star Quinton Martin as well as one of the better tight end groups led by Tyler Warren and incoming five-star Luke Reynolds. 

With new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki implementing a new offense, Penn State is hoping for a similar impact he had at Kansas. 
Kotelnicki inherited poor Les Miles teams that never finished higher than 101st nationally in scoring offense and in Miles last season at Kansas averaged only 15.8 points per game in 2020.

Kotelnicki improved the Jayhawks offense in his first season averaging nearly 21 points per game, but what Kotelnicki did the last seasons hasn’t been seen by a Jayhawks team since the Mark Mangino era where Kansas averaged 35.6 points per game in 2022 (21st nationally) and 34.8 points per game finishing 17th nationally last season.

In the process, Allar hopes to replicate what Jayhawks quarterback Jalon Daniels was able to do prior to his back injuries being that dynamic quarterback that can leverage the full creativity of a Kotelnicki offense is characterized as.

If Allar’s full potential can be realized by Kotelnicki’s creativity, Allar will realize many projections of him going in the first round.

Some notables include the Associated Press’s Ralph Russo who predicted the New York Jets would make Allar the heir apparent to Aaron Rodgers saying, “Allar has a lot of work to do to get here, but he has all the traits and the Jets are once again looking for their quarterback of the future.”

In a lot of ways, New York Jets fans have Penn State “PTSD” in the NFL Draft. They took former Penn State running back Blair Thomas over Florida’s Emmitt Smith as well as the infamous selection of Penn State tight end Kyle Brady over the Miami defensive lineman Warren Sapp.

Recently the Jets took a flier in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft former Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg. Hackenberg, who possesses a similar frame to Allar, was hailed by ESPN as a potential No. 1 overall pick, turned into a frequent punching bag for WFAN’s Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts, who touted that Hackenberg couldn’t hit the water from the beach.

While the Jets hope left tackle Fashanu can break the Nittany Lion curse, The 33rd Team’s Marcus Mosher emphasized what I had earlier about his poor performances in big games but said if he can fix that the Pittsburgh Steelers might be a potential partner at No. 19.

How I view Allar is that it is hard to ignore the physical traits he possesses and how he can make many throws that seem to take a lot of effort, really effortless - physical traits made guys like Jay Cutler, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert amongst many others first round selections.

I feel Allar presses in situations because he feels he needs to make a play and usually puts the ball where the ball needs to be and is failed by the other end and not Allar.

His decision making and ability to protect the football is some of the best I have seen watching quarterbacks the past four decades, coupled with his physical traits have NFL organizations drooling. 

It's really hard to gauge how good Allar can be when their are so many deficiencies on the perimeter for Penn State, if those issues get resolved, we can get a better indicator of Allar’s ability, for now the first round grades are merited, maybe those who are betting Allar is going to be the No. 1 overall pick in 2025 NFL Draft (as of April 30), the fourth best odds on DraftKings, might be reaching a bit there.