UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Despite playing a so-so game offensively, quarterback Drew Allar and Penn State won easily against Florida International.
Allar threw for 200 yards and two touchdowns, but his 58% completion rate left a lot to be desired from those in attendance and himself.
“I just don’t think it was good enough in general,” Allar said.
“I didn’t think he was in his normal rhythm,” head coach James Franklin said. “We had some drops. He had some throws that he normally makes, that he didn’t. Obviously, that was a major factor for us on third down as well. But just we couldn’t seem to get into the rhythm on offense, and that was part of it.”
Penn State was 3-for-12 on third down and multiple drives resulted in not finding the end zone in the first half, thus limping into halftime with a 10-0 lead.
“Coming off the field on the first half, like I didn’t play as good as I wanted to play,” Allar said. “I just knew I had to come into half and reset and flush it. And I think we did a good job of the first two drives coming out of half and putting up points on the board. Just got to be more consistent throughout the game. And that that really starts with me. I kind of killed our momentum at times throughout the first half.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.For Allar and Penn State, the solutions seem to be fairly simple to fixing the issues plaguing the offense early this season, but it starts and ends with Allar.
“It’s just me making easy throws easy, and it’s nothing more, nothing less,” Allar said. “I mean, it’s just me playing a little bit better. And I think I did a good job of coming out in the second half and just making the easy things easy, but yeah, just starting the game off faster.”
Penn State has been unable to start games fast, but despite being only two games into the season and having struggles offensively, they’re 2-0 and have dominated both games.
“We wanted to start a lot faster,” receiver Devonte Ross said. “I think once we went to half or whatever, we came out and made some adjustments, I think we did a good job bouncing back from the first half that we had so I mean, just starting a little bit faster.”
Drew Allar and Penn State will need to start faster when they enter Big 10 play in three weeks against Oregon, but for now, the 2-0 and has a lot of room to improve and that’s a good situation to be in.
