Drew Allar, Penn State offense approaching bye week ready to work

The first five weeks of the Drew Allar era are in the books. He came out firing against West Virginia. He was efficient against Delaware. He managed a Whiteout blowout of Iowa. And he helped Penn State to road wins at Illinois and Northwestern.

Now, Allar can take a breather on a bye week. Well, sort of.

There is plenty for Allar and the offense to work on this week, areas to improve upon even after a 5-0 start to the season. He knows that better than anyone.

“It’s going to be a huge bye week for us,” Allar said after Saturday’s win at Northwestern. “We can only get better. We have to take that mindset into it even though we don’t have a game next week. There’s still a lot to improve on. A lot of work to be done. And I think if we go in with that mindset of tackling each day, like we’ve been the past five weeks, we’ll come out of the bye week better and hit the ground running the following weekend. … Overall, it’s taking a step back and looking at the grand scheme of things and seeing how we’re doing as an offense.”

On the surface, the Nittany Lions are doing well. They’re averaging 40.6 points per game, tops in the Big Ten and 12th in the FBS. They’ve scored at least 30 points in all five games, extending their FBS-best streak to 12 games going back to last year.

Penn State has been effective in the red zone, scoring 22 touchdowns on 26 trips. That 78.6% conversion rate is the second-best in the country among offenses with more than 20 trips to the red zone. The Nittany Lions are moving the chains on fourth down, converting 10 of 11 tries (90.1%, fifth-best in the FBS). And they haven’t turned the ball over yet, the only team to do that nationally. Coach James Franklin said “it’s not sexy to talk about ball security” but it is extremely important.

And yet, anyone who has watched Penn State’s offense extensively this year can acknowledge that it hasn’t always been pretty.

The primary point of contention is around explosive plays, and it’s a fair point. The Nittany Lions have only 12 plays that have resulted in 20 yards or more. That puts them tied with Northwestern, N.C. State and East Carolina for the second-fewest in the country. The only FBS team with fewer is Sam Houston State.

Of those 12 plays of 20 yards or more, only two of them are rushing attempts: one from backup quarterback Beau Pribula and another from third-string tailback Trey Potts. That lack of explosiveness has noticeably frustrated star running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, as it should.

The downfield passing game hasn’t necessarily clicked, either. Allar had five passes of 20-plus yards against West Virginia. Since then? Only seven.

It’s been mostly KeAndre Lambert-Smith providing a spark, accounting for a third of Penn State’s long pass plays. Otherwise, Allar has missed a few open receivers. Separation at the top of routes has been an issue for the wideouts, as has dropped passes that could have turned into big plays.

“There’s going to be things that we need to critique this week and do some self-scouting and some studying. We’d like to be more explosive,” Franklin said on Saturday. “I still think there’s an opportunity for more big plays in both the run game and the pass game. And that obviously will be something we dig into deeply.”

“We want to be as explosive as we can as an offense. That’s obviously the goal,” Allar added. “You could say as much as you want about not being explosive. But I don’t think people realize how close we are to breaking a lot of things off. Maybe it’s one missed block, one missed assignment or missed throws by me. I mean, I had plenty of them today (against Northwestern). So it’s all things we can clean up.”

Getting Harrison Wallace III back healthy should bolster the aerial attack. More time and reps with Kent State transfer Dante Cephas could also improve the rhythm and timing needed to hit on some of those big plays.

In the running game, it feels like a matter of when not if Allen and Singleton, especially, break loose. The holes haven’t always been there; Penn State’s run blocking grade from Pro Football Focus ranks 85th in the FBS. But the backs are confident in who they have in front of them and what they can do in the coming weeks.

“We’re going to fix the run game,” Singleton said. “It’s going to work eventually.”

Singleton and the Nittany Lions are hoping that this bye week — this brief respite from the season — will allow them to refocus and reinvigorate the offense. It’s on the players. It’s on Mike Yurcich. It’s on the position coaches. And it’s on Franklin.

It’ll be a group effort to fix what needs to be fixed and enhance what’s already working. They all know that after UMass comes one of two season-altering tests, a highly-anticipated visit to Ohio State with Big Ten title and College Football Playoff implications.

By then, the Nittany Lions want to be hitting on all cylinders. That makes this a crucial bye week for Allar and the Penn State offense.