Drew Allar’s return dominates Penn State’s key storylines entering 2025

Drew Allar dropped back, surveyed the field and had championship glory in his eyes. He rifled a over the middle with the best intentions but got the worst result imaginable.

The throw was off target and intercepted by Notre Dame’s Christian Gray with 33 seconds left in a tie game in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Orange Bowl. Moments later, the national title dreams of Penn State evaporated amid the agony of a 27-24 loss. 

It was the dreaded that Allar has probably agonized over every time his head hit the pillow at night this offseason, and this offseason still has many more long nights left in it.

There was no glory that January night in Miami — only pain, sadness and a lot of regret. Allar was the central character in all of it because he was the star quarterback who was going to bring Penn State its first national championship since 1986. On a team full of stars, Allar was the one asked to deliver in the biggest moment, and when he failed, it flipped the 2024 dream season into a nightmare in South Florida.

Regardless of whether or not Allar returned to school, he would be hailed as 1 of the best quarterbacks to ever come through Happy Valley. However, many among a ionate blue blood fanbase would only him for the that spoiled everything last season.

Maybe Allar couldn’t live with that.  Maybe Allar couldn’t deal with his decorated college career ending in such gruesome fashion. 

Perhaps that or other factors we are unaware of confirmed for Allar that he wasn’t yet ready for the NFL. 

Whatever the reasons, as we get ready to hit the summer, Allar is still the quarterback at Penn State for 2025, and there is something really noteworthy about that.

Actually, there are multiple reasons why Allar returning for 1 more shot at glory in State College flies in the face of most everything we’ve come to know about today’s sports world and the world in general. We’re going to take a dive into the 5 reasons that Allar putting the NFL off for another year was equal parts surprising and refreshing.

Note: These 5 storylines surrounding Allar’s return are in no particular order of relevance.

Allar is willing to play the long game

Despite the horrific season-ending interception, Allar has compiled a rock-solid career at Penn State and would’ve been a high draft pick in 2025 had he entered the draft. Bleacher Report’s Brent Sobleski ranked Allar as the No. 3 quarterback in the 2025 draft class back in January, putting Allar behind only Cam Ward, who was the No. 1 overall pick, and Shedeur Sanders among quarterbacks.

Sobleski called Allar “a potential first-round pick” in a weak class that saw just 2 QBs taken in the first round. Ward would be the top selection, and Ole Miss star Jaxson Dart would land with the New York Giants late in the opening round.

When Allar announced in mid-December on his social media that he intended to return to Penn State in 2025, a lot of surprised observers paused and said, “Just wait.” In other words, just wait until Allar gets through the 2024 Playoff run that hadn’t even begun yet when he declared his intention to return. Just maybe, with a deep Playoff run or even just a successful individual performance in the Playoff, Allar would change his tune and declare for the draft after all.

Allar didn’t wow or do much in Penn State’s first-round shellacking of SMU. He threw for just 127 yards with 0 touchdowns but also didn’t throw an interception, staying out of the way as the Nittany Lions rolled to a 38-10 win behind a 189-yard performance on the ground and a lights-out defense.

In the quarterfinal win over Boise State at the Fiesta Bowl, Allar got cooking but was far from flawless. He was spectacular with 3 touchdowns and zero interceptions in the win, but a mere 52% completion percentage allowed Boise to hang around for much of the game.

Penn State was rampaging through the Playoff, taking care of overmatched foes, and Allar was doing just enough with help from a deadly running game and 1 of the best defenses in the country.

Everything was right on schedule for Penn State and Allar, and perhaps the 2025 draft was becoming an option, too? Then the semifinal against Notre Dame happened. The Nittany Lions defense, led by stud Abdul Carter, played well enough to win that night, and the running game churned out over 200 yards for the 2nd straight Playoff game. 

Allar was the missing piece in Miami. He didn’t play well enough that night, and that was before the crushing interception. It was his only pick of the game, but it came at the absolute worst time, and it proved the old quarterback sin right about throwing back across the middle into coverage. 

“I was going through my progression and, honestly, I was trying to throw it at his feet,” Allar told reporters after the game about the that was intended for wide receiver Omari Evans. “I should have just thrown it away when I saw that the first two progressions were not open. I just didn’t execute what I was trying to do.”

Would it have been terribly awkward for Allar to still declare for the draft after that and that performance? Yes, a little — or maybe a lot for some still-angry Penn State fans.

Would it have been unheard of, in this day and age of college sports, when star players leave for the pros after doing far less than Allar did? Hardly.

The opportunity was still right there for Allar to leave, because what if he came back in 2025, suffered a major injury and put his NFL future in jeopardy? That nightmare scenario could happen, of course, this fall, but Allar was willing to take that huge gamble and roll the dice.

He would go back to work, try to put up great numbers for a third straight season in State College, lead another Playoff run that didn’t end the way the last 1 did, and then finally cash in at the 2026 draft. It’s the long game, a forgotten game among most college stars this century, and Allar is playing it.

Allar is betting on himself in 2025

On that awful January night in Miami, Allar’s postgame words were already pointing toward this fall. Allar never lost confidence through that failure, but he owned that failure, too, and vowed to come back stronger — wearing those wonderfully plain blue and white jerseys, not some unknown NFL uniform.

“We didn’t win the game, so it wasn’t good enough. Plain and simple,” Allar told reporters after the loss to Notre Dame. “So, I’ll learn from it, do everything in my power to get better from it and just grow from it.”

Right away, in the raw moments after a mistake that cost his team — his beloved program — a shot at a national title, Allar had started the recovery process. This wasn’t some average quarterback who was carried to double-digit wins the past 2 seasons in State College. Just the opposite, in fact.

Allar officially arrived on the Big Ten scene with a bang in his first season as the starter in 2023, throwing for 2,631 yards with 25 touchdown es and just 2 interceptions while leading the Nittany Lions to 10 victories. That breakout year was a stepping stone to last fall, when he lit up defenses for 3,327 yards with 24 TD es and just 8 picks despite not being healthy all season. Allar also improved his completion percentage from 59.9 in 2023 to 66.5 in 2024, a noteworthy bump in accuracy.

He’s proven to be a pest with his feet, too, rushing for a combined 512 yards and 10 touchdowns during his 2-year starting run. Allar has developed into 1 of the best quarterbacks in college football. One brutal and 1 brutal performance, even on the biggest stage, doesn’t change that at all going into 2025.

Allar has no doubt positioned himself as a Heisman Trophy contender by returning, and that potential hype train this fall is probably somewhere in the back of his very mature mind. DraftKings has Allar at +1600 to take home the Heisman this fall, the 6th-best odds in the entire country. The Heisman stuff would be a cool byproduct of Allar’s decision to come back, and he would deserve every ounce of it, assuming he takes another step forward in his development.

But Allar didn’t forgo the 2025 draft and the money and security that would’ve come with it to win a Heisman Trophy. It would be wonderful, sure, but Allar is still the quarterback at Penn State right now because he wanted the chance to finish things off there the right way. His way.

And Allar was supremely confident enough in himself to believe that it would happen in 2025. He’s betting on himself as a senior to be the best version of himself, and he’s betting hard. That in itself, as we sit here in the calm of early June, is extremely commendable.

Allar is also betting on Penn State in 2025

Allar showed a ton of inner belief in even considering a return to State College this year. But the other half of the coin here is that Allar also wouldn’t have considered coming back without truly believing in Penn State’s ability to reload in 2025. As good as he is, Allar is 1 guy, and you need talent everywhere to think about making another deep Playoff run.

This is also what Allar is betting on by u his final year of college eligibility. He is betting on James Franklin and his ability to assemble another talent-rich team, and also Franklin’s ability to get the absolute most out of that team. Yes, Franklin hasn’t exactly excelled in the biggest games during his tenure in Happy Valley, but he’s won a ton of games, and he did get the Nittany Lions within 2 victories of a national title.

Franklin shed some of that longtime label about not being able to win any big games with those 2 Playoff wins over SMU and Boise State. Sure, Penn State was expected to win both games and definitely got a favorable Playoff draw. But games are won on the field, not in selection committee board rooms. Franklin still had to coach those games, and his stacked team, directed by Allar, still had to go out and execute.

They did, and they did it impressively. Penn State was a force on both sides of the ball, coming within a few plays of playing for the national title. We know why that didn’t happen. Allar knows better than anyone on this earth, but he’s coming back for more because he truly believes Penn State has more to give. 

Another strong recruiting class in 2025. Some quality talent infusion via the transfer portal, like highly coveted Syracuse transfer wideout Trebor Pena, who caught an ACC-high 84 es for 941 yards and 9 touchdowns last season. Dangerous weapons on the outside was 1 thing Penn State didn’t have enough of last fall, and Pena will help solve that.

Yes, all-world tight end Tyler Warren is gone to the NFL, and not having that security blanket will be a major adjustment for Allar. But reinforcements are returning, like the senior running back duo who’ll be lining up behind Allar in Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, who both rushed for over 1,000 yards in 2024. 

Having just 1 of those running backs back in the fold for this year would’ve been huge for Allar. Having both of them back is simply an embarrassment of riches, and you better believe the pair announcing they would return for 1 more year right after the Notre Dame loss had an impact on Allar confirming his own return.

Allar showed the college football world how much he believes in himself by staying in that world. But he also showed his fierce loyalty to the program he’s quarterbacked the past 2 seasons. Allar loves Penn State, he lives Penn State football, and he believes he would be most happy in 2025 by staying in Happy Valley. 

That’s a heck of a show of loyalty from a returning quarterback.

Allar is teaching a lesson by staying

There’s a safe assumption here that many Penn State fans and many college football fans in general thought Allar would gently head to the NFL after last season, despite how it all ended in Miami. College athletes who’ve accomplished less than Allar have darted to the pros before their eligibility was used up, so if Allar did change his mind in January, it wouldn’t have been earth-shattering.

That’s not what happened, and that’s a pretty unique thing. We don’t really know how close Allar came to changing his mind. He might’ve slept on it for a few restless nights after the semifinal loss, or just maybe his December announcement that he was coming back was ironclad. No matter how it all went down for Allar in the days after the Notre Dame game, he backed up his words from a month earlier.

Allar wasn’t going anywhere, even if some did predict he could sneak into the first round of the 2025 draft. Instead, Allar was already focusing on getting Penn State over the top in 2025. He can and will wait for the 2026 draft to finally cash in those NFL dollars, and if Allar has at least a similar season to his first 2 as the Nittany Lions starter, he will improve his draft standing for next spring.

Everyone in college football circles, from the higher-up officials all the way to those impressionable young Penn State fans, saw how Allar handled everything. Sure, some grumpy cynics will groan about Allar pas the NFL and possibly putting himself in jeopardy of a major injury. 

But the money doesn’t belong to the cynics. It’s Allar’s money, or at least it will be eventually, and it was Allar’s own decision and nobody else’s when it came down to it. Yes, Allar isn’t without compensation for 2025 after his decision to come back. There will now be another NIL payday, with Allar partnering with EA Sports among other brands.

That helps soften the blow of pas the draft and further justifies Allar’s decision. But NIL or no NIL, Allar coming back to try to climb that mountain again is a great example of sacrifice, unselfishness, pure will and patience. It should be a lesson that sometimes the easier path isn’t the best path. 

For Allar, the best path in 2025 was another trip through the Big Ten jungle. No matter how it all turns out for him this fall — great, good, not so great or indifferent — the decision itself to take another shot at Playoff glory goes in the win column. 

Allar didn’t think he was ready for the NFL just yet, and he wasn’t going to pretend he was. He wasn’t going to fake it, not with his future at stake, and everything about that is so refreshingly real.

Allar can now pull off the ultimate in 2025-26

That’s really what Allar’s decision to return sets up. There is a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Allar, if he can thread the needle this fall and duplicate his past 2 seasons in State College, or even sur them. 

Allar can grab it all from the first snap in late August through next spring’s draft. He can own the 2025-26 football cycle — college and pro. There is a checklist that is treacherous, with individual and team rewards galore. All of it — or at least some of it — can be Allar’s because he decided to return.

There’s another double-digit-win season, and how about a revenge victory at Ohio State on Nov. 1? There’s a Big Ten title to win, after Penn State came up short against Oregon in last season’s championship game.

Speaking of Oregon, the Ducks come to State College in late September for a Big Ten title game rematch, and Allar can serve notice in primetime in front of a sure-fire White Out.

The former 5-star stud in the 2022 class can make the All-Big Ten team. How about being an All-American in 2025? Then there’s the slew of individual quarterback awards that Allar can collect, and he can make the loudest individual statement by becoming the first Big Ten player to win the Heisman Trophy since 2006.

All of that can be Allar’s, and we haven’t even mentioned the College Football Playoff. Allar will have a huge advantage come December should he help Penn State return to the Playoff because of his experience in last season’s run. And how about the motivation Allar will take into the Playoff after falling just short of the national title game in 2024? 

Allar can take it all a step or 2 further in 2025 by getting the Nittany Lions into that final college football game and that elusive national title after a nearly 4-decade drought. 

If Allar can pull all of that off, or something close to it, you better believe he’ll be a first-round pick, probably a top-10 pick and maybe even the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 draft. And if that happens, it will put Allar in a position to be a far richer man in the coming years than he would’ve been had he skipped his senior season.

Putting those potential millions aside, what Allar is embarking on this fall and into next year will most certainly make him far better prepared to be a great NFL quarterback. If that does happen, then the money will come with it. 

Allar’s decision to come back for his senior season at Penn State is already 1 of the most refreshing things we’ve seen from a college athlete in a while. That box has been checked. But if Allar really does learn from that interception in January and comes back stronger in 2025, there could be a whole lot more boxes checked in the coming months.

That ultimate glory still awaits, and Allar is sticking around to finally seize it.