The Fall Of Allar? How Drew Allar's Injury Impacts His 2026 NFL Draft Outlook
Thor Nystrom breaks down Drew Allar's abbreviated 2025 season and how his season-ending injury impacts his 2026 NFL Draft stock.
In the College Football Semifinals this past January, Penn State had an 85.4% win expectancy against Notre Dame with 5:07 to play. A 54-yard touchdown pass from Notre Dame QB Riley Leonard to WR Jaden Greathouse 30 seconds later tied the game and neutralized that percentage.
Penn State went three-and-out on the ensuing possession, but they got one more chance with less than a minute left, starting at their own 28-yard line. PSU QB Drew Allar was intercepted by Notre Dame’s Christian Gray on the second play of the drive.
Gray returned the ball to Penn State’s 42. Notre Dame gained 19 yards to move into field goal range while bleeding the clock. The game-winning kick that followed advanced Notre Dame to the national title game
It was a devastating loss for the Nittany Lions. But the morale of Penn State’s fanbase rebounded quickly, because, over the ensuing week, a Penn State roster expected to have mass NFL defections instead got confirmation of the returns of a star-studded group that included Allar, RBs Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton, OT Drew Shelton, EDGE Dani Dennis-Sutton, DT Zane Durant, and S Zakee Wheatley. The Nittany Lions also poached DC Jim Knowles from defending-champion Ohio State.
Penn State entered 2025 as national title frontrunners.
Why Did Drew Allar Return To Penn State This Season?
Almost a month before that loss to Notre Dame, on December 16, 2024, PSU QB Drew Allar announced that he would return to Penn State for his senior season. Of all the Nittany Lions’ surprising return-to-school declarations, Allar’s was the most stunning.
At the time, the Nittany Lions were preparing to play SMU in Round 1 of the CFP. Allar, a five-star recruit and the No. 1 quarterback in the Class of 2022, was seen as a first-round possibility/probability and a quasi-lock to go in the top-50.
On the day of Allar’s announcement, ESPN’s Jordan Reid and Mel Kiper ranked Allar, respectively, QB3 and QB4 on their big boards. Reid and his colleague Matt Miller both ranked Allar No. 30 overall in the 2025 class.
The CFP began. Allar played mistake-free football the first two rounds against SMU and Boise State, posting a 3:0 TD/INT rate. In the semifinals, Penn State used a conservative, run-heavy game plan against Notre Dame, with 42 designed runs and only 23 pass attempts.
Even in the moment, it was hard to quibble with that decision. You got the feeling the Nittany Lions were rolling the dice every time they called a traditional dropback. Penn State ultimately benefited from two would-be Allar goal-line interceptions being nullified due to holding and pass interference penalties.
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Penn State began its final drive of that game with the intention of running out the clock and forcing overtime, handing off to RB Nick Singleton on the first play. But when Singleton gained 12 yards, Penn State’s plans changed. Now, the Nittany Lions wanted to try to win the game in regulation.
Out of the gun on the next play, Allar dropped back from his own 28. He first looked left, but didn’t like the look he had for the two Penn State receivers on that side of the field (after reviewing the All-22, Allar made the correct decision here). As Allar shifted his attention to his third-read downfield over the middle, his clean pocket collapsed, with a free rusher bearing down on him.
Allar, who had drifted outside the left hash anticipating a throw to the left, was trapped. Already outside the pocket, his best option would have been to throw the ball away. His next-best option would have been to eat the sack, which would have ushered the game to overtime, an acceptable outcome to the team on the play before.
Allar chose Option 3, which was unloading the ball as fast as he could. He had an unsteady base under him when the ball left his hand, and Allar’s target, 18 yards upfield and on the other side of the field near the right hash, seemed continents away. The ball drifted upfield and inside on Allar, so that the only player who could make a play on it was Gray.
Coming out of the Notre Dame game, there was rampant speculation that Allar would reverse course and declare for the NFL Draft despite his declaration to the contrary the month before.
The Athletic’s Dane Brugler reported at the time that NFL teams had still “heavily [scouted Allar] for the 2025 class” during the CFP, and that “several NFL GMs” believed that Allar “could [still] come out.”
Despite the disappointing end to his season, the NFL still appeared extremely intrigued by Allar. The 6-foot-5, 235-pounder had posted a 49/10 TD/INT rate over the previous two seasons. His completion percentage had improved from 59.9% to 66.5% and his YPA from 6.8 to 8.4 in 2024.
According to a high-ranking NFL executive who spoke with Fox Sports, Allar was a “talented passer” with “physical upside” who had a "huge arm.” Allar was a good athlete for his size who had been clocked at over 20 mph on the GPS.
Allar ultimately reaffirmed his return to school in 2025. Brugler reported in May that Allar “probably” would have been the No. 2 overall pick to the Cleveland Browns had he declared for the 2025 NFL Draft. Allar grew up outside of Cleveland and is a lifelong Browns fan who has spoken of his dream to be drafted by the organization.
Allar’s stated public reasoning for returning to campus at the time was that he had unfinished business and wanted to make a national title run in 2025. But in July, a Fox Sports story quoted Allar contradicting his own narrative. Now, Allar was saying he decided to return due to the advice and information he’d received about his draft stock following the 2024 regular season:
“[The] information that made its way back to Allar — the stuff that came from sources he actually trusted — reflected a much wider range for where he might actually land. Some teams viewed him as a legitimate franchise quarterback worthy of a top-end selection. Others thought his inconsistencies rendered him more likely to be chosen in the middle rounds. There was too much variance for Allar’s liking, so he informed Franklin and the coaches of his intention to return the following year, a choice he now says was 90% firm entering the College Football Playoff.”
Did you catch that last sentence? It was notable in that Allar was admitting that he had left the door open to declare for the NFL despite his mid-December announcement. If the Gray interception never happens, and if Penn State ultimately beats Notre Dame, one wonders if a different decision might have been made.
As it turned out, the NFL’s Advisory Committee had advised Allar to return to school in December. The board only returns one of three grades: Round 1, Round 2, or return-to-school. Allar’s decision seems to have been heavily influenced by receiving that last designation.
Fast-forward to this past summer. NFS, one of the NFL’s two scouting services, assigned Allar a Round 3 grade. To be fair, that was tied for the second-highest grade that NFS assigned to a senior-to-be quarterback (important reminder: no underclassmen are graded, so this is an incomplete list).
Either way, it’s fair to assume that in mid-January 2025—at the time that he had to make a final decision on the NFL—Allar believed he had a legitimate shot to go in Round 1, but that there was also a real possibility that he would drop to Day 2.
Allar believed that returning to school would allow him to lock himself into Round 1. Though it’s easy to second-guess that decision now, it’s important to remember that many in the NFL, from both sides of the intensely polarizing Allar debate, agreed with his decision.
A veteran NFL scout told ESPN just two weeks ago that Allar had a “chance" to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft: "He needs to play more instinctually. When he plays loose, he's better. I thought the Oregon game was a great microcosm—big-time throws and scoring points. Then a couple of brain farts. The talent is all there. First-round talent. Good make-up. He's just not a swashbuckler type."
It’s unclear how much NIL money Allar received in 2025 for spurning the NFL, though On3's NIL valuation of Allar was $3.5 million.
Drew Allar's Start To Penn State's 2025 Season
Everything started out according to plan in 2025. On the morning of September 27—just a little over two weeks ago—undefeated Penn State was ranked No. 3. The Nittany Lions had outscored three cupcakes 132-17. Drew Allar was widely regarded as a first-round prospect.
Three-straight losses later—an understandable 2OT home loss to Oregon, followed by stunning upset losses to UCLA and Northwestern—and everything has changed. Penn State fired long-time HC James Franklin on Sunday.
The night before, right after the loss to Northwestern, one of James Franklin’s last acts as acting head coach was announcing to the media in his postgame presser that Allar had suffered a season-ending injury.
According to Franklin, he had spoken with Allar right before that and Allar had given him the go-ahead to pass along the news. Franklin gave no specifics about the injury itself. Penn State had not provided those 48-plus hours after the conclusion of the game at the time this column was published.
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According to Fox Sports’ story from July that delved into Allar’s decision to return to school, Allar’s main sources of information outside the NFL’s advisory committee were HC James Franklin and his agents.
"They did a great job giving me as much information as they could in a short time span, allowing me to make the most informed decision for myself on what I thought was best for me," Allar said at the time. "I definitely wanted that feedback just because when you’re going into that decision, at least for me, I want to be as informed as possible, no matter if it’s good or bad. I want to know where I stand."
We know what the advisory committee told Allar, and we know that NFS gave Allar a third-round grade this summer. We don’t know what information was conveyed by his agents or Franklin, though Franklin had this to say in the same story:
"Most people had him projected as a first-round draft choice last year and he decided to come back to school [because of] unfinished business collectively as a team, but also as an individual. I'm a big Drew fan. You guys get a chance to get around him, you'll feel the same way. He's really what it's all about."
The Season-Ending Injury For Drew Allar
Right now, in this moment, we can only speculate on Allar’s injury. One social media theory centered around Allar having suffered a possible ankle fracture. If so, Allar would have a shot to participate in the NFL Combine in late February.
Allar could attempt a Hail Mary medical hardship waiver, but that’s a longshot. Allar never redshirted, but he appeared in more than four games in all four of his seasons on campus. That made 2025 his final season of eligibility.
The Northwestern game was his fifth appearance of the season, which, by NCAA rule, closes the possibility of a redshirt. The NCAA’s more lenient approach to exemptions in recent years opens the faintest possibility for an appeal, but it’s unclear at this time if Allar would even be interested in trying.
So, barring something unforeseen, Allar’s collegiate career is now over. We only got five games from Allar in 2025. How much of his regression was his fault, and how much of it was because of the circumstances around him?
Explaining Allar's 2025 Regression
One of the most promising developments of Allar’s 2024 season was how he appeared to be stretching his big-league arm out more. Allar’s meager big-time throw rate of 2.9% in 2023 jumped to 5.1% last year, while his YPA improved from 6.7 in 2023 to 8.4 in 2024.
Through five games in 2025, Allar’s YPA regressed back to 6.9. Allar’s adjusted accuracy percentage remained consistent over the past three years, finishing between a static 73.0-73.7% each season. But underlying metrics are not kind to him.
That Allar’s turnover-worthy play rate nearly doubled in 2024—from 1.1% in 2023 to 2.1%—was largely forgiven because Allar was letting it loose more often in new OC Andy Kotelnicki’s scheme, and it was leading to more explosive plays.
But troublingly, over 159 passing attempts in 2025—he had 391 in 2023 and 394 in 2024—Allar’s big-time throw rate fell by more than half to a career-worst 2.5%. Meanwhile, his turnover-worthy play rate rose once again, to 2.6%. This, despite his aDOT reverting back to the more conservative 2023 levels.
In short: Allar was generating fewer explosive plays than ever while putting the ball up for grabs more than ever. In shorter: Drew Allar had noticeably regressed.
Allar’s most ardent defenders have proffered myriad explanations for his sluggish development—unimaginative play-calling, bad receivers, and mediocre offensive line play being three of the chief culprits.
There is some truth to all three. But those explanations never give the other side.
Allar had Olu Fashanu and then Drew Shelton protecting his blind side throughout his career, and 2025 Penn State currently ranks No. 13 in PFF pass-blocking grade. The receiving corps, maligned in 2024, was supposedly fixed via portal acquisitions of WRs Trebor Pena, Devonte Ross and Kyron Hudson, three respected starters at their last stops.
That trio makes up Penn State’s starting WR corps this fall. None has more than 240 receiving yards across six games. Half of Pena and Ross’ yards have come off YAC, and that duo has dropped only one ball on 62 targets this season—they’re probably a bit confused why they’re being criticized.
Penn State’s receivers had a 5.8% drop rate in 2024 and a 6.4% drop rate in 2025—both less than the national average. Allar supporters say his receivers don’t get open for him. But how then to explain Pena’s 84 catches and Ross’ 1,000-yard season at different schools in 2024? How did Hudson start at receiver-rich USC?
The solutions were now … the problem?
Was Tyler Warren The Driving Factor For Allar's Previous Success?
This brings us to Kotelnicki, formerly one of the sport’s fastest-rising offensive gurus. He was hand-picked from Kansas’ staff to unlock the final phase of Allar’s development. Last season, Kotelnicki was given credit for doing just that—or at least doing the grunt work for the largest example of it that we had seen.
Penn State’s offensive game plan each week in 2024 was creative and envelope-pushing, including little-seen gimmicks like the trick play where TE Tyler Warren snapped the ball as a receiver-eligible inline center against USC and then ran down the field and caught a long touchdown pass.
This year, there is markedly less creativity and aggression in Penn State’s offense. If the explanation for that is Kotelnicki (or Franklin’s influence on Kotelnicki) ... then why wasn’t that an issue in 2024?
From an on-field perspective, Allar’s 2024 season is an advanced-stats outlier. If none of the explanations above jive with that aberration, and if Allar himself didn’t simply, without explanation, become objectively worse over the offseason without explanation … then what possible explanation could explain everything?
When Andy Kotelnicki arrived in Happy Valley in January 2024, he met a big, athletic, toolsy prospect who had never been used correctly. Kotelnicki recognized that he had just inherited a prodigy, and he built his first Penn State offense around him.
Penn State almost qualified for the national title in part because of Kotelnicki’s decision.
No, I’m not talking about Drew Allar. I’m talking about TE Tyler Warren.
In 2024, Allar turned 394 pass attempts into 3,327 passing yards and 24 TD while completing a career-best 66.5% of his passes.
Warren caught 104-of-135 targets for 1,230 yards and eight TDs. More than half of those yards—693—came after the catch. The 6-foot-6, 260-pound Warren had 24 catches behind the LOS, and 51 more 0-9 yards upfield. A full 75 of Warren’s catches came within nine yards of the LOS.
You will sometimes hear YAC described as a quarterback stat. In many circumstances, there’s a lot of truth in that. In the case of Warren, any credit not given to his rugged tackle-breaking brand of football must be given to Kotelnicki’s creativity in dreaming up different ways to get the ball in his hands with a little space to work with.
Precious few times on Allar’s tape did he facilitate a YAC opportunity for Warren with a throw or decision that a lesser quarterback would not have made. The vast majority of Warren’s looks came quickly after the snap on a decision that had been made before it on timing honed in practices months prior.
Of Allar’s throws in 2024, 56.6% came within nine yards of the line of scrimmage. He completed 81.2% of those throws. On throws 10+ yards downfield, Allar completed 51.3%.
Without Tyler Warren in 2025, Allar generated a mere 77 yards on 28 attempts behind the line of scrimmage. Allar’s effectiveness on throws of 0-9 yards upfield likewise nosedived.
Allar’s accuracy improvement in 2024 is largely attributable to going 63-of-71 (88.7%) on throws behind the line of scrimmage and 118-of-152 (77.6%) on throws 0-9 yards upfield, and his yardage and YPA gains were almost solely due to YAC.
The significant 2024 improvements to Allar’s per-throw rate stats are simply a picture of Tyler Warren’s smiling face. In hindsight, it seems obvious that Allar should have declared for the NFL Draft immediately after Warren did.
Where does that leave Drew Allar now?
Drew Allar's Outlook For The 2026 NFL Draft
Let’s just assume, for the sake of this thought experiment, that Allar’s injury will have no long-term ramifications and that it will not prevent him from working out at least once in front of NFL scouts this spring.
Allar has fallen to QB9 on my big board. Last spring, my QB9 (Dillon Gabriel) was No. 200 overall on my Thor500 big board. Allar’s evaluation is the polar opposite of Gabriel’s, but Allar will similarly likely be assigned a Round 6 grade on my board this spring.
Allar has physical abilities that cannot be taught. He’s big, he’s got a big arm, and he’s athletic enough to manufacture yards on the ground when he needs to.
But Allar continues to have issues reading the field, throwing receivers open, and repeating his mechanics. He continues to see accuracy depreciation downfield because of the latter issue. He continues to make wonky decisions under duress, and it’s difficult to accommodate for that when you don’t sense pressure.
He typically has a teacher’s-pet ethos of not taking unnecessary risks with the ball. But that seems to cut both ways, with what appears to be an embedded fear about throwing to targets that aren’t provably open as the ball is leaving his hands.
In the NFL, instances of a receiver being open 10-plus yards downfield at the time of the throw until the ball arrives are exceedingly rare. Despite Allar’s arm talent, it’s difficult to project sudden improvement in this problem area without making a logical leap.
In 2024, Tyler Warren not only consistently gifted freebie yards to the offense on high-percentage layup concepts, but he forced defenses to move up resources to stop the paper-cut bleeding he and the run game inflicted.
This had the effect of lightening defensive resources downfield, giving Allar more advantageous looks to convince him to use his big arm to drive it downfield.
The loss of Warren had a deleterious cascade effect on Penn State’s offense. The efficiency cratered when the freebie yards were taken away, and explosive plays were more difficult to generate with defenses no longer having to cheat up.
Allar, who doesn’t like to let go of the ball if he isn’t convinced he has the best of it, responded by throwing an even lower percentage of balls 20+ yards downfield in 2025 than he did in his first year as a full-time starter in 2023.
Even with the barrage of short manufactured passes that went to Warren and RB Nick Singleton last season, Allar’s percentage of throws 20+ yards downfield was still more than 3% higher in 2024 than it was in 2025.
The clean one-on-one looks downtown dried up without Warren’s gravitational pull. Allar doesn’t trust himself to fit balls into tight windows downfield. So he simply stopped stretching the field as often.
Most will forward Drew Allar as a cautionary tale this spring. Others will present him as a buy-low sleeper, with all the physical tools and pedigree you could want at a huge sticker-price discount.
All the way through last month, Allar’s most common NFL player comparisons were Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, and, on the lower end of the scale, Carson Wentz. Allar’s haters would evoke Christian Hackenberg, a five-star Penn State recruit who played early and fell to Round 2 due to extreme accuracy inconsistencies.
I don’t like any of those comps. But I’ve got one for you that I haven’t heard.
Who Is Drew Allar's Best Player Comp?
Recently, there was a 6-foot-5, 240-pound quarterback who entered the draft. This quarterback had nearly the exact same physical dimensions as Drew Allar. He also had a huge arm and, like Allar, was a good athlete for his size.
This quarterback spent his entire career at the Power 4 level and posted a 5.7% TD rate and 1.7% INT rate while completing 61.6% of his passes for an 8.2 YPA and 146.3 QB rating. Allar had a career 6.1% TD rate and 1.3% INT rate while completing 63.2% of his passes for a 7.4 YPA and 142.7 QB rating.
Our mystery quarterback’s package of high-octane collegiate passes was strung together and posted on Twitter throughout his draft process to highlight his theoretical upside. During his draft process, he was awarded the Senior Bowl’s first-ever “Good Guy Award” for the type of person he was behind the scenes.
His overall draft process, however, was mired by questions about field reading, pocket presence, decision-making, inconsistent mechanics, and scattershot accuracy.
Our mystery quarterback fell to the sixth round of his draft, going No. 193 overall. Despite looking the part in a spot-appearance in Week 18 last season against a playoff-bound team’s backup defenders, his team traded him this offseason for a late-Day 3 pick-swap pittance.
That mystery quarterback’s name is Joe Milton.
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