MMQB – QB Development

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This past Thursday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers took on the Green Bay Packers in the first game of the NFL preseason. The Steelers prevailed 28-9, and former Penn State quarterback Drew Allar played a large part in the win.

The third-string quarterback in the game, Drew went 1o-of-13 passing for 153 yards and two touchdowns through the air, and recorded a rushing touchdown as well. All told, Allar accounted for 21 of Pittsburgh’s points in game the Steelers won by 19.

It has been noted all off-season long that Steelers coach Mike McCarthy has had to essentially retool Allar’s mechanics from the ground up, working on his footwork and release, among other skills. It appears to already be paying dividends, as Drew looked comfortable and capable playing against a NFL defense – albeit a bunch of third-stringers in a meaningless preseason game.

Which begs the question – how has Penn State been so bad at quarterback development over the last 10+ years?

Christian Hackenberg (2013-15), Trace McSorley (2016-2018), Sean Clifford (2019-2022), and Drew Allar (2023-2025) were the primary starters for the Lions for the last decade plus, though you can throw in some notable backups including Tommy Stevens, Will Levis, Beau Pribula, and Ethan Grunkemeyer as well.

For a team like Penn State, which regularly churned out NFL talent over the same time span at offensive linemen, running backs, and tight ends (not to mention virtually every defensive position), not having a single quarterback truly develop in the last 13 years is startling in hindsight.

The common thread through all of this was James Franklin, the former head coach who now resides in Blacksburg, VA. He inherited Hackenberg, and a year after winning Big Ten Freshman of the Year, was seeing ghosts and throwing up stinkers. McSorley came with Franklin and had immediate success, though his final season was his worst and only managed to get drafted in the sixth round.

Clifford may have been the one QB that didn’t show signs of regression under Franklin, and was drafted in the fifth round.

Most recently Allar appeared to be a square peg in a round hole all three years he started, but did manage to get drafted in the third round.

A large issue was a disconnect between the actual players on the roster and the offensive coordinators. Franklin often seemed to employ a “shiny penny” approach to his coordinators, just going after whichever OC had put up the gaudiest stats, not considering that the coordinator might like to run a system with a highly mobile quarterback, while Penn State was chock full of pocket passers.

The quarterback coach also deserves scrutiny. Danny O’Brien took over as QB coach the same year Andy Kotelnicki became the OC, and Drew Allar appears to have had his fundamentals (hopefully not permanently) altered along the way.

Mike Yurcich served as both offensive coordinator and QB coach before O’Brien.

Kirk Ciarrocca was both OC and quarterback coach before Yurcich.

Ricky Rahne was both offensive coordinator and QB coach before Ciarrocca (he was also QB coach when he first arrived at Penn State with James Franklin, switched to TEs for a couple years, then went back to QBs when he became the OC).

Joe Moorhead was both OC and QB coach before Rahne.

So perhaps its worthwhile to revisit the previous statement regarding offensive coordinators. Perhaps Franklin was just not very adept at picking offensive coordinators, and when they took over as QB coach, it degraded potentially the most important position on the team.

Whatever it was, it’s a blight on an otherwise stellar team that has pumped out first round NFL talent at pretty much every other position. Perhaps Matt Campbell can begin to correct that trend, though if I were a high school quarterback, it would take several years of Penn State actually developing QBs before I’d consider playing there.

But what do you think? What has been the biggest cause for Penn State’s lack of production at the quarterback position? Will it continue into the future? Or can the Lions finally start to make some waves at QB?

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