Drew Allar, Penn State offense left to pick up pieces after Peach Bowl loss
By Greg Pickel
Atlanta — No one will have to watch the 2023 version of the Penn State offense again, and there are probably not too many people who are disappointed about that. The Nittany Lions struggled endlessly to get consistent play at wide receiver. Play calling was an issue before and after the coordinator change. First-year starting quarterback Drew Allar protected the ball well, but he did not get enough help and didn’t always help himself.
When the anatomy of the Lions’ attack this fall is dissected, it will be seen as a frustratingly inconsistent unit that did some things well but not often enough and had its weaknesses exposed time and time again. That was the case again here at Mercedes-Benz Stadium as the Lions lost 38-25 to Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl. The team did have 510 yards of total offense. However, they feel kind of empty. Seventy-five of them came on a fluky play. Penn State also turned a red zone trip into a field goal, which it couldn’t afford to do in a game like this, regardless of whether you and James Franklin think (probably right) that there was pass interference on the third-down play. Either way, the final time to watch this unit proved to be similar to what we saw the rest of the year, even with a month of preparation.
The Penn State offense must improve
“We’ve got to stay on schedule like we talked about,” head coach James Franklin said. “We’ve got to make plays for [Allar] when we have the opportunity to make plays for him. I think there’s some things that he can do and be more consistent as well, but I think the biggest thing, which I think was a question earlier, is we’ve got to be able to scare people and be a threat consistently on the perimeter.
“That’s something I think we’ve shown flashes of at times, but we need to be able to do that on a consistent basis. So it’s a little bit of Drew. I think it’s a little bit of the offensive line, I think it’s a little bit of the coaches. I think it’s a little bit of the wide receivers. It’s a piece of all of it. We’ve got to make some plays for him, and he’s got to make some plays as well.”
New offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who takes over Sunday, has his work cut out for him to fix the Penn State offense. It will be no easy task. Massive improvement is needed at receiver. Two new tackles will start, as will a center. And, the top pass-catching tight end is moving on, too. It starts with Allar, but the 2024 offense will only go as far as the players around him help take it.
“I think it’s just goes on us really just going out and executing the plan that they have for us because honestly, we had a great plan going into this game and we as players didn’t do our job and execute to the highest of our ability,” Allar said.
That was too often the case in 2023. It must be better in 2024.
