Penn State quarterback Drew Allar was destined to be ‘up next’

College football recruiters representing a myriad of schools paid a visit to a Medina High School practice in northern Ohio, just south of Cleveland, in 2019. One visiting coach found himself on the sideline in conversation with defensive coordinator Kevin Bowers.

“Hey, have you had an opportunity to hear Drew Allar throw?” Bowers asked.

Puzzled, the coach turned back, “Hear him throw? Don’t you mean see him throw?”

“No, Coach,” Bowers said. “I mean hear him throw. You stand next to him and when the ball comes off his hand, it sounds different than any ball I’ve ever seen or heard in my life.”

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Bowers compared it to a wet towel, stirred up, and snapped. “That noise but low-pitched,” Larry Laird, Medina’s head coach, added. It hums on the release when he really lets it fly – something Allar has steadily learned to control.

Longtime teammate Matt Spatny offered comparisons of a missile or a baseball.

“During practice, we would always joke about wearing three pairs of gloves,” Spatny said. “Because if we were doing slant routes, he’d throw it so hard.”

Ask his former coaches and teammates what makes Allar special, primed to be sixth-year quarterback Sean Clifford’s successor at Penn State, it’s because he never let his rare arm talent put him on a pedestal. It never stopped him from collecting the footballs and pushing the water tanks after practice.

Spectators likely can’t hear him throw. But they’ve seen it in his brief appearances for the Nittany Lions – playing in nine games, completing 35 of 44 attempts for 344 yards and four touchdowns. He’s even got a rushing TD on the season as well.

This is why Penn State’s fan base is among those “All in for Allar,” as one student section sign puts it.

Before blooming into a 6-foot-5, 242-pound Big Ten quarterback, Allar was once a skinny ninth-grader. That was his first taste of playing quarterback, standing just over 6 feet, 180 pounds, moving from linebacker and tight end to under center for Medina High School’s freshman team.

“We figured he was just another kid out there,” Bowers laughed, looking back. “Not memorable is probably what you would say about freshman Drew Allar. Very non-memorable.”

Laird recognized the way Allar released the ball wasn’t common for a novice at the position. He earned junior varsity reps by the end of his ninth-grade season and spawned a quarterback controversy his sophomore year with senior Ryan Gillespie.

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When Gillespie went down with an injury in October 2019, Allar got his chance and never let go.

“His sophomore year I thought he was going to be a really good [Mid-American Conference] player,” Laird said. “In between his sophomore and junior year, just the hard work and dedication that he showed in the offseason, he made himself the big-time recruit that he became. He made himself five-star.”

Allar worked relentlessly with Medina quarterbacks coach Brad Maendler on his mechanics and spent the rest of his time studying film. So much so that his coaching staff feared he was missing out on life as a regular teenager.

“He was a football junkie,” Laird said. “He couldn’t get enough of it.”

Having to game-plan against him in practice became a chess match for Bowers. If he called for man defense, Medina receivers could already outpace the defensive backs — and expect a perfect ball from Allar. Against regular zones, Allar was a whiz at finding the opening.

For a red zone practice, Bowers drew up a creative zone design facing a second-and-5 situation. It keenly focused on reading the senior quarterback’s eyes. “Where he looks, you got to run,” Bowers said.

When Allar’s eyes darted to the right sideline, he fired the ball to a receiver pulling from his left for a 15-yard, no-look touchdown. Bowers helplessly tossed up his arms and flung his call sheet.

“That’s not fair,” Bowers told his team. “As a defense, that’s not on you. We don’t play Drew Allar so we’re OK. That was a running joke the whole year every time he would complete a ball on us.”

Allar collected school records in bulk. He holds the top spot for career passing yards (9,103), career passing touchdowns (98), single-season passing yards (4,444), single-season passing touchdowns (48), passing yards in a game (525), and passing touchdowns in a game (5).

As Allar’s football stock rose, eventually he was honored as Ohio’s Mr. Football for 2021, so did his local celebrity status.

“I remember the LeBron [James] stuff, he’s two years younger than I am so I kind of grew up watching the LeBron stuff from afar,” Bowers said. “Now I wouldn’t say that Drew and LeBron were equal, just to be clear. But it was in the same arena.”

Bowers remembers leaving one coaches meeting that wrapped up about an hour after a midweek practice. He walked out to his car to find Allar signing autographs for a sea of young kids. The star quarterback said he had been out there since practice ended, to which Bowers laughed and rolled his eyes.

“I told him, ‘At some point, you’re allowed to say no. Like you got to go do your homework,’” he said. “Drew is one of the best quarterbacks in the country, but these kids have homework. He was like, ‘Yeah, all right, Coach.’”

Bowers didn’t think much of it. An hour’s worth of signatures from Allar wasn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary. So Bowers took off, hoping the star quarterback would eventually find his way home.

He picked up his son and took him to his own practice at the nearby rec fields. About halfway home Bowers realized he forgot his backpack in the coaches’ office. It was 8 or 9 o’clock by that point.

Who was in the parking lot when he got back? Allar, surrounded by people shining flashlights so he could sign “anything anyone brought.”

“That speaks to who he is, I think,” Bowers said. “Signing the person’s stuff was the right thing to do, so he did it. That really is who he is as a person and it translates on the field. … He picks up the footballs and pushes the water tanks.”