Allar on how Penn State prepared him for the NFL
Drew Allar sits down with Chris Simms and Mike Florio to discuss the pressure of playing at Penn State , being named Ohio 's Mr. Football in 2021, James Franklin's impact on his career and more.
Video Transcript
All right, we continue with the Scouting Combine 2026, Indianapolis.
Joining us now, former Penn State quarterback, Drew Aller.
Drew, welcome.
How's it going?
I'm doing good.
How you guys doing?
Doing great.
Doing great.
Doing great, man.
Great.
I mean, you're a legend, man- -you right here.
First off, how you feeling?
I feel great.
Yeah?
Yeah, I feel really good right now.
So I- Where are we at in the process?
You have a broken ankle, right?
Yeah, I had a broken ankle with a high ankle sprain.
you know, I have a lot of great supportive staff around me, so my agent was able to get me hooked up with, Dr. Waldrop, who, who's the one that did my surgery, so great surgeon.
and then Penn State athletic team took care of me a lot, and then when I got out to ProActive, and then Mark1 Motus, they- I've had a lot of great people around me that have helped me get to this point.
And, like, you, you Where are we at physically moving right now?
Nah, I feel really good.
Yeah.
Like, if there was a game tonight or tomorrow, like, I, I truly feel- You could do it like I could go out and play.
All right.
Yeah.
That's cool to hear.
Good to be young.
Amazing stat that I just see here: you started your college career with 311 passes without an interception.
Mm-hmm.
At what point were you aware of that streak?
Not till after I threw the interception.
Oh, really?
Obviously.
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, but I mean, I had a lot of teammates help me with breaking up some bad balls that could've been intercepted.
So there's been- there was a handful of those beforehand that- Well, I've always been impressed with your ability to shut the noise out.
Mm-hmm.
You've been under the microscope.
People give you crap.
You're the quarterback of Penn State, right?
So they're not happy unless you win the national championship- Yeah and make every throw.
But how Take us inside your mind, and how you kinda deal that- deal with that, and compar- compartmentalize it.
Yeah, I mean, it was something I definitely had to learn.
Like, my sophomore year, I didn't, I didn't handle it well in quite, in just total transparency.
Like, you know, one thing I was on, on Twitter, like, or I was still on Twitter my sophomore year- Ah and, like, all that social media stuff.
Right.
when it got to my junior year, I logged out of it.
and I have, like, a backup Instagram page that I can go to, and kinda just, you know, kinda- Be you- Yeah, be me and do, look what you wanna look at.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good for you.
So, like, that helped me a lot.
It just clears up, head space.
Like, you may not think it impacts you in any way, but, you know, it some- somewhat does subconsciously.
but And I had a great coaching staff at Penn State.
They, they helped me a lot through it, and, you know, e- everything worked out in the, in the long run.
Right.
Mr. Football in Ohio your senior year of high school, the number one quarterback prospect in the recruiting class.
H- how did you not end up in Columbus?
Yeah, so I mean, I was a late bloomer in the recruiting process in general.
Like, I didn't start playing, quarterback till my freshman year of high school, like, full-time.
And, you know, late bloomer, didn't get my first offer till after my sophomore year, because I didn't start until the last s- four games of my sophomore varsity season.
and then, yeah, so from there, it was a couple of max schools.
Like, my first offer was Central Michigan, and then, like, Akron, were the first two to offer me.
and then from there, COVID happened, the winter of my sophomore year, and from there, you know, I was planning on having a big summer, going to camps and all that sort of stuff, what the typical high school guy does around that age.
didn't have the opportunity, so I really had just started working with a quarterback coach at that time, and he really turned me into more of a rotational thrower.
Because if you look at my high school film- sophomore year, like, I was very linear- Yeah throwing like I was a pitcher off the mound.
Right.
So yeah, so that really helped me a lot.
And then, you know, Quinn Ewers was committed to Ohio State, and we were the same recruiting class originally, and then when he reclassed up to, Class of '21, is when Ohio State started recruiting me again the fall of my senior year.
Mr. Football in Ohio is a big deal.
That is a big deal.
That would be one of the more big Misters out there, all right?
For sure.
It's rare, though.
What the hell were you doing as a kid?
You weren't playing quarterback?
Like, what, what 'Cause u- usually, quarterbacks are quarterbacks forever.
Yeah.
No, I, I wasn't.
I was playing DN, linebacker, fullback, and tight end.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's where you get your grittiness from a little.
yeah, yeah, that's definitely where I get it from.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right, that's cool.
So what happened?
Did you just throw a ball one day, and somebody's like, "Holy crap, this kid needs to be a quarterback?"
So I, I always loved throwing in general from baseball.
I grew up playing baseball, pitcher, third base, shortstop, so I always loved that.
And, you know, my freshman team my freshman year didn't have a quarterback, so, you know, I was like, "You know what?
I'll just go try it."
And- Isn't it amazing how it happens?
it all worked out, it worked out in the long run- Yeah for sure.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
All right, grip the football for me.
All right.
I like to always see how the quarterbacks grip- Yeah, I'm ready and what they do.
So you're two, and you got the pinky on four a little bit.
Yeah.
So it's just barely on it.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah, so- There's a lot of quarterbacks in football right now.
Yeah.
You like the NFL football so far?
I, I do like it a lot.
Yeah.
So, like, last year at Penn State, you know, we had a great EQ staff, Cruz, and, and, and Ben, and, and Juan, that Are, are EQ guys.
Right.
And, you know, we have a really good relationship, so with a lot of brands, I changed the football to kinda model, NFL football, just bec- with the laces and the leather we were using.
Yeah.
Obviously, the difference is the stripes in college.
Right.
So nothing was stitched on that.
but yeah, so I was kinda- You've been thinking about it a little bit.
Thinking about it a little bit.
And then, you know, I've been fortunate enough to throw in the last two pro days at Penn State with, you know, Theo Johnson, Deshawn Hamilton, and last year, Julian Fleming.
Gotcha.
So I got some experience throwing an NFL football, too, beforehand.
The laces on the NFL ball, right, they're just consistently better than the college ball.
I agree.
And the leather.
In, in college, I had the, the thick pro laces- Oh, yeah so they were a little bit bigger than the standard one.
Gotcha.
Okay.
But I like both of them a lot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the- This is, this is some fascinating quarterback nerd shit.
It is.
Yeah, it is.
That's right.
what's your favorite route to throw?
Ooh, two that come to mind is, like, a deep out, like, we call it a deep post, like, a 20-yard out on the sideline, or just a, a in cut, 15-yard in cut.
Who, who you watch?
So, like, you know, since you're kind of a newbie quarterback- Mm-hmm who, who-Who's your favorites right now?
Who do you watch- I mean- high school, college, whatever it's a, it's a hard list to put together because I'm a football junkie.
and like every offseason at Penn State, I watch a ton of NFL film.
whether it was like schemes I wanted to watch or players in general.
Like the first two I always gravitated to just watching was, Josh Allen and Joe Burrow.
Yeah.
like I, I've always loved watching those guys play, and just their style of play.
They're a little bit different styles, but you know, get the job done at a very high level and in their own ways, which makes it, you know, really cool to watch what their what they do.
Like, how they process stuff and how fast they get through everything, and just the plays they make downfield.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're ballers.
Give me an area of your game where you know you need to step it up next level.
Yeah.
So I've been working on the consistency of my footwork.
I think that's something I've always, you know, strived to get better at.
I feel like every year in college it, it took a step.
and you know, it wasn't that it was like bad footwork, it was more of like I was unaware of the footwork I was doing.
Like I was putting myself in, you know, bad, bad situations to make the easy hard, is what I was doing like my junior year.
Like I missed some easy out throws to the left and that was because like, you know, I was stepping under myself and then swinging my gait and, you know- Yeah really facing towards the sideline.
Yeah.
And you know, just I would make it like 50% of the time just because I had the, the talent to.
Right.
But the other 50%, you know, it looked, it looked bad on film.
Yeah.
And you know, just cleaning up those things, so And just being intentional with my direction, always making sure I'm like getting at least some momentum to my target, not when I have to or when I can, and then when I have to, just make plays with, from different arm slots and that sort of thing.
That's right.
You gotta be a machine in the NFL.
For sure.
Yeah.
You miss, you go 50% on the out route, they're gonna go, "You're gonna be on the sideline 100% of the time."
Yeah.
you went through a weird thing in college football this year.
Not only have you been scrutinized, you got hurt.
But j- just, just briefly talk about like what it was like to be a part of a major program who was this close to beating Oregon, where you're like, "Okay, they're one of the top teams in the country-" Mm-hmm they barely lost.
And then two weeks later your coach is fired.
Yeah.
I mean, it was something that was hard to deal with.
Like, you know, I'm still really tight with Coach Franklin and his whole family, his, his wife and his two daughters, and that whole staff that is down at VTech now that has followed him from Penn State.
Yeah.
and you know, it was hard to go through for sure because, you know, I wasn't playing anymore, coach wasn't there, so you know, it was definitely different in that vibes.
And obviously Coach Terry did a tremendous job of holding us together and, you know, steering the ship and to finishing out the season in a, in the right way for us.
but it was hard to deal with.
And you know, I, I felt guilty and responsible for part of it just because I knew if I had made a couple more plays the year before, in the playoff run, and then obviously this past year, in a, in a couple of those games, like we're not having the discussion of Coach Franklin being on the hot seat.
And you know, I, I know everything happens for a reason.
He's gonna kill it at Virginia Tech and, you know, I feel really confident in Coach Campbell, too, just because I, I knew him from, my high school days being a recruit.
so you know, I'm hoping for the best for Virginia Tech and Penn State.
You did a lot of good things in that game the year before.
You did a lot of good things.
You played really good.
The guy made a good play, too.
He did.
Yeah.
He did.
But you know, at the end of the day it's about taking care of the ball.
I know you blame yourself.
I know.
I know.
You make an interesting point, though, and I think Josh Allen has been dealing with that same mindset that the coach loses his job and in some way it's my responsibility.
How did you work your way through it?
Because obviously it's not your fault, but you have to convince yourself of that.
What did you do to get yourself to that spot?
Yeah, I mean, honestly it was just talking with Coach.
you know, just whether it was through text or over the phone.
And you know, Coach Alosi I'm really tight with, who was the, his head strength guy, so he's, was still able to be around through my whole like recovery process and lifting process.
So I was able to just keep really c- tight connections with that whole staff and, you know, still in a lot of group chats with them.
But you know, it was definitely something that was hard to deal with, though.
Yeah.
Like, it, it's hard to kinda explain it because, you know, my sophomore year we had a change at OC, which is, you know, was hard to go through for sure.
But it's not at the scale and magnitude of, you know, the entire program being gutted, for a lack of a better words, with like, you know, support staff, athletic training staff and coaching staff being gone.
Who's the defensive player you're most excited to see on the field in person for the first time?
I know you wanna see Josh Allen and Joe Burrow- Yeah so we've gone there.
I, I mean, you know, I would, I would probably say Myles Garrett.
Yeah.
even though I, I don't know if I wanna go against him that much.
Yeah.
Be careful what you wish for.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But a lot of my former teammates, too.
Like, you know, Chop, I was just on the phone with Chop Robinson yesterday.
Sure.
And you know, obviously I got to compete against him in practice but, you know, that's, that's different though.
Now he gets to hit you for real.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He didn't get to do that.
And, and Chop did a really good job of taking care of me.
So he'd get in the backfield really fast and, you know, he let me know he was there, but he always, he always took care of me.
Damn, Chop and Duel Carter's- gonna like hitting you.
Yeah.
Duel, yeah.
You're gonna have a lot of guys that are like hitting you that are old teammates.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
What are you doing on Saturday at the workout?
I'm just throwing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just throwing.
So I, I'm really excited.
feel really good with where I'm at in my recovery process and, and rehab, and really excited to go out and cut it loose.
Yeah.
I'm impressed that you're even throwing, man.
I didn't know what the answer was.
Yeah.
Well, that- I, I wasn't sure if you'd be ready to go yet that was my entire goal.
So like after probably a week out of surgery, you know, I set my mind to, like I told my agent, told my athletic s- staff at Penn State, like, "There's no doubt in my mind that I'm n- not gonna be throwing at the combine.
Like, I'm gonna do everything in my power to, to be there and, and, you know, just be myself, in the interviews and then just go out and, you know, play football and throw the football around."
Yeah.
Good man.
I'm rooting for you.
Appreciate it.
You're easy to root for.
Thank you.
You're a good dude, all right?
Thank you.
You've been through a lot but it's only gonna help you.
Yeah, appreciate it.
Kicks ass.
Yeah.
Drew Allar, Penn State quarterback.
We'll be back with plenty more from the scouting combine
