Tough conversation: is Allar good enough?
- Thread starter TheWizardofCamelot
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To-may-to/To-mah-to.
It doesn’t matter. Allar lacks the “it” factor.
A nice kid. I’m certain he tries very hard. He just can’t turn the corner and grow. We’ve seen the movie many times over. The ending isn’t changing. blame everything else in the world, But Drew is done. He doesn’t have “it”.
Disagree completely...see the toughness he demonstrates on the field. No QB is going to be successful when they aren't put in positions to succeed.
He should have gone to Miami this offseason
The one thing everyone seems to agree upon, the one thing that brings everyone on the board together is distaste for the gimmick-ridden offense.
I was losing my mind late in the game when they split Drew out as a WR.
The game is on the fugging line, and AK is upstairs playing Settlers of Catan.
I was at the game and was just able to watch that 4th quarter on the replay. We actually looked good on offense and Drew looked good in that quarter.
In Franklin's presser he admitted the offense did not get going until obvious passing situations. So what happened? How do we suddenly turn into a competent team on offense when we are behind by 14 points? Did Oregon stop doing something, if so why would they do that and not go back to what they were doing once we found success? I think it is telling that once Allar started running it created opportunities. It is like once he is desperate then he starts playing well. Maybe we only play OSU for the 4th quarter and spot them a 10-0 lead? Perhaps Allar could rally for two fourth quarter TDs.
At the end of the day, Allar is just way too inconsistent to be considered anywhere close to an elite QB let alone at a level we need him to be in order to win these big games.
I have been critical of Allar in earlier posts but think of how different the conversation would be if our $3M DC's defense were able to stop Oregon in the first OT. The game tying drive would live forever in the minds of PSU fans along with Kerry Collin's drive in 1994( for us oldsters), the 2016 blocked FG vs OSU in 2016 etc.
That is classic Jim Knowles. His stats are great on paper but in critical 4Q or OT situations his defense hardly ever produces. It happened in all 3 OSU losses to Michigan and the 2022 playoff loss to Georgia.
That is classic Jim Knowles. His stats are great on paper but in critical 4Q or OT situations his defense hardly ever produces. It happened in all 3 OSU losses to Michigan and the 2022 playoff loss to Georgia.
Ohio State has had an enormous amount of success against highly ranked teams.
And their skid against Michigan is short-lived in comparison.
I think you are right about Allar not having the "it" factor, especially in the big games. To me, having "it" at the QB position comes down to two things. The first is having the upmost confidence in yourself to a point of having a bit of swagger to you which shouldn't be confused with cockiness. An elite QB just knows he can make the big play happen. I think Allar still has a look on his face and body language at times that says he hopes he can make the big play happen. The second is making the correct split-second decision when the game is on the line. The interception to end the game was a BAD decision. If the linebacker had not intercepted the pass, the DB was probably going to intercept that floater as well. If that was his only pass option on that play, he should have thrown it away or pulled it down and tried to get a few yards or even take a sack. Anything but float a ball that several defensive players in a tight area could get to. If he could have found a way to win that game in that situation, it might have changed my viewpoint of him completely. He's good just not elite.
The guy reminds me of Carson Wentz. Big and strong physically, but not the instinctive mindset to adapt when plays break down. Appears robotic in that he will stick with the play that was called even when it’s obvious that it’s busted. Doesn’t seem to have a great deal of intuition/adaptibility. Even when he runs he appears as a robot stick man.
How was his defense when OSU beat Tennesee Oregon Texas and Notre Dame?
Jim Knowles is not the problem.
I'm afraid that may be the case.
Remember how much Matt McGloin improved when Bill O'Brien showed up? The improvement was drastic, and he stuck around the NFL for a few years.
Then Hackenberg was solid as a true freshman under Bill O'Brien, and seemed to regress once he left.
The Penn State defense was on the field for the majority of the game once again, 33 1/2 minutes. 33-35 minutes has been typical for big games. The defense also held the juggernaut Oregon offense to 17 points over 4 quarters. That absolutely has to be good enough for our high first round QB, “best RB duo in college football”, and “one of the best offensive lines in the country” to outscore.
Our offense stinks right now and that’s why we lost the game. The defense held up for 4 quarters until it got worn down.
I'm not sure how anyone thinks the scheme and lack of coaching isn't an issue.
The defense also didn't create a turnover (I know we can argue they had one) and elite defenses come with a stand in OT. They didn't.
I do think the defense is elite and that's why we're far from done. I do think the offense is the main problem...at leatlst the scheme and refusal to have Allen as RB1 but the defense had opportunities.
Reasonable people (I know, that excludes the vast majority of sports fans and sports media talking heads) knew all three of those contentions were largely propaganda. (And you didn't mention the "PSU brought in three great new WRs in the portal" bit)
Was there reasonable hope it would be better than what we have all witnessed this month? Sure. (And I wouldn't discount the potential for SOME level of improvement moving forward)
But those "assumptions" were nonsense.
The WR portal talk was embarrassing to hear so I couldn’t bring myself to mention that one.
With the blank check HCJF has been given for EVERYTHING (and that he has utilized liberally), he managed to leave the responsibility for the development of the QBs (the single most impactful position on the field) to Danny O'Brien. That says it all.
Nothing against O'Brien per se, and at some point in his career he may be a perfectly competent QB coach and he may be a hard-working young man - he just has zero provable qualities wrt being successful in that role - that's a HCJF issue all the way. And it was all utterly predictable from the jump.
The lack of fundamentally sound QB play is certainly not the only challenge for the offense - but it is a big one.
O’Brien seems like a nice guy and I know the players love him, but the results have not been good. Drew also has a personal QB coach, Brad Maendler, who works in coordination with the PSU staff. Maendler also works with Grunk.
Based on Oregon only scoring 17 points, I don't know how anyone can complain about Knowles; the fact is that his gameplan worked. He basically did what Belichick always has done; he took away one aspect of Oregon's offense and made them grind out drives and hope that they would make a mistake, which was the correct strategy. The problem is that with this strategy, the offense had to help the defense by sustaining some drives to shorten the game.
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The problem was and remains the ineptitude of this offense causing the defense to remain on the field way too long. Defense unable to take risks because the offense is struggling and they cannot allow the opposition to get too far ahead if they allow lots of explosive plays.
O’Brien seems like a nice guy and I know the players love him, but the results have not been good. Drew also has a personal QB coach, Brad Maendler, who works in coordination with the PSU staff. Maendler also works with Grunk.
Too many cooks stirring the pot?O’Brien seems like a nice guy and I know the players love him, but the results have not been good. Drew also has a personal QB coach, Brad Maendler, who works in coordination with the PSU staff. Maendler also works with Grunk.
In the Tennessee and Oregon games because of the offense the game was not in doubt in the 4Q. That is where JK shines. He shines when he has a great offense to fall back on. That was his MO at both OSU teams that he was DC. I will give him the Texas game although an argument could be made that end of game goal line stand was more on Sark or his OC stupidity than anything else. As for the ND game he nearly gagged that game away in the 4Q by giving up the big play. which was his MO in the first 2 Michigan losses and certainly the Georgia play off game.
Too many cookies? Probably because it’s a fig newton and a snowball cookie instead of just one good chocolate chip cookie.
So his defenses are good, and make huge plays in huge games but those aren't to his credit. He runs an aggressive scheme which makes them good, but when it backfires it means he's bad. And if we make the offense elite, his defense will improve. Got it.
You are arguing that his defenses aren't good because they sometimes give up plays to good teams late in the game.
No. What I am saying is that while his defensive stats are great on paper, the giving up big plays to good teams in the 4Q or OT in critical situations happened way too often at OSU. I have said this on this board more than once. In the 2022 ,2023 and 2024 Michigan games and the 2022 Georgia play off game with the game outcome in play in the 4Q the JK defense did not force a SINGLE punt in the 4Q of any of those games. There is a pattern there.
To me it seemed that Allar played better when no one expected a win. Down 17-3 in the 4th qtr I think he got out of his head and just said, "F it. I'm going to sling this thing and see what happens. The game is already lost." What happened was a nice comeback, but in OT the pucker factor was back and we got what we got.
You're cherry picking 4 losses, where the defense didn't get enough stops in the 4th quarter against very good team offenses/cheaters.
He also has many games where his defense performed very well and won games for them.
Use the Penn State Oregon game as an example if you want, did Penn State lose that game because of the defense? No. Despite giving up points in OT, they performed admirably for the game in its entirety.
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The difference was the play calling. The four play TD drive with the deep ball is what our offense should look like all the time. Not this junk HS crap that worked in thr Dakotas. Allar is doing what he's told to do. He handcuffed.
Two things.
I really did not mean to turn this into a JK debate. There are and probably will be other threads where we can have that debate. My only original point was that if the Defense stops Oregon in the first OT then we are having an entirely different conversation about Allar.
I may be cherry picking 4 games but it is not just any 4 games that I am cherry picking. Is there any CFB fan that can dispute that before last year's play off run the 4 most important OSU games of the JK era there were the 3 Michigan games and the 22 Play off game vs Georgia.
No...not hating him doesn't make me his relative. I'm sure not a casual fan.