Drew Allar is ready to meet the moment for Penn State. This is his journey there

Dawn Allar’s son was ready to go to the Parish School of Religion, but he had some questions. The then-first grader was curious and wanted to know what he was going to be learning about in this new endeavor, so Dawn kept it simple.

“I said ‘Well, they’re gonna talk to you about Jesus and God and the saints,” Dawn told the Centre Daily Times.

The last bit caught the attention of her son, Drew, who would spend hours tossing footballs with his father in the backyard. Drew stared at his mother for a moment, before asking, “They’re gonna teach me about Reggie Bush and Drew Brees?”

Dawn laughed, after her son alluded to the two famous New Orleans Saints. “I didn’t know what to do with that,” she said. “That was probably when I realized this probably means a little bit more to him than I think it does.”

More than a decade later, her son has displayed how much the game of football means to him.

Drew Allar has dedicated the formative years of his life to continuous improvement and is now on the verge of leading Penn State football into the biggest season of the James Franklin era — with a support system that helped elevate him to this moment.

Falling in love with football

Growing up in Ohio, it did not take long for Drew to find his way to the sport. His dad, Kevin, played tight end at Eastern Michigan and that led his son to the game.

Soon, he became enamored with it.

“Just from a very young age, just looking up to him,” Drew said at Penn State’s media day. “(He’s) why I got into sports in general, especially football. That’s always been a part of my life and I just want to continue it as long as I can.”

Kevin remembers playing catch with his son when he was small, but it was more than just getting some physical activity. The sport was a way for a father to bond with his son — an easy avenue for them to connect.

It wasn’t just football, though, that brought Kevin and Drew together. It was all sports. They would talk about baseball and basketball together, watch it on TV and play when they could.

That evolved into dad taking his son to see the Cleveland Browns — the team the family follows so passionately that their dog Ozzie is named after former Brown Ozzie Newsome — at training camp. Soon thereafter came trips to the stadium for games once Drew was old enough, as he continued to build a love for the game through his love for his dad.

That way of bonding was something Kevin learned when he was a child, doing many of the same things with his own dad, and carried on to his relationship with his children — Drew and his sister Ryann.

“I’ve always loved sports,” Kevin told the CDT. “... That was kind of the only thing I knew — it was how to relate to him through sports. That’s how our connection is. Obviously our connection is more than that. ... But it was always through sports how we did our entertainment or bonding.”

Their bonding time soon developed into Drew’s passion. It became apparent that his intake of football wouldn’t stop as a bystander. Before long, he was asking to play the sport that he developed a deep love for, and his parents relented.

It didn’t take much time for Drew to translate the sport into even more relationships, much like the way he and his dad built theirs.

He took to the coaching that came from Ken Johnson, who would coach him in basketball and football throughout his youth. Their families became close, with Ken joining Kevin’s football coaching staff at the latter’s request. Drew and Ken’s son, Keon Johnson, remain close to this day.

“He’s someone that’s always going to be there for you,” Keon told the CDT. “And it’s not just him. It’s his family as well. They’re always going to be there for you.”

Earning his place

There is a stigma that comes with being the coach’s son. It would be assumed that Kevin would play favorites and put the ball in Drew’s hands as the quarterback because that’s what many dads do in the same situation.

Kevin was different. He took the opposite route, taking the idea of his son getting preferential treatment and nipping it in the bud by not letting him play quarterback.

“He always wanted to try quarterback,” Kevin said. “And I was always like, ‘No, you’re not going to be the quarterback. The head coach is not going to have his son as the quarterback of the team.’ I was adamant about that. He was my fullback, defensive end kid. Very good player and stuff like that, but was never the quarterback.”

In fact, Drew never got to play quarterback with his dad as a head coach. Instead, he had to wait until he was in seventh grade when his coach asked the team who could throw and he stepped up to do it.

That wasn’t an instant success. He was the backup signal caller in middle school, playing a number of other positions before he found his way to high school.

Eventually he decided quarterback was something he wanted to pursue more, and Kevin knew that it would take more time to make the type of strides Drew wanted to as a passer. So he put the wheels in motion on getting him a coach to work with as he entered ninth grade.

“After his eighth grade year he started getting a real liking for the position,” Kevin said. “Then I said, ‘OK if this is something you really want to try, then we’ve got to do something more than you and I just throwing the football in the backyard.’ I just made a couple phone calls and asked some people and he started working with one of the football coaches from (Division III) Baldwin Wallace (University) and got some basis for his vision.”

Still, there were strides that needed to be made to really help Drew blossom. He was an inexperienced quarterback but had the size and the tools to be a real difference maker.

It helps that he had the drive, the work ethic and the obsession with improving that it took to make those jumps in short order.

Not starting at quarterback in eighth grade helped give him the push he needed and provided more than enough motivation for him to put all of those things together to find his path.

“You could just tell he wanted to find a way to play,” Keon said. “He started working out more, just perfecting his craft every single year. You could see the progression from his arm just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. The velocity of his ball was getting more pure.”

Taking the next step

Ken, as Drew’s youth coach and close family friend, saw much of what his son saw, and knew there was something to be tapped in to.

“You don’t see the five stars coming,” he told the CDT. “But you see the evolution and you knew something great was coming because he’d never played quarterback until his freshman year in high school. Then when he did, everybody could tell that this kid was going to be great. ... He has such a high work ethic. He would grab everybody and he would call you out to the field on the weekends to go run routes so he could throw to you. I think his work ethic put him over the top.”

Drew’s family friend took notice and so did a notable figure in high school quarterbacking in Ohio. One day, Drew had a direct message on Twitter from Brad Maendler.

Maendler, who has since created and runs QB Excelerate where he trains high school quarterbacks, first heard of Drew in 2019 when he was a sophomore in high school, and then really took an interest after he watched his high school film. Maendler said the way he threw showed him that there was room to grow and that’s when he reached out.

That decision ended up impacting Drew and his future more than anyone likely could have imagined. He had a chance to be a quality high school quarterback, but after training with Maendler he evolved into something more.

That’s when the offers and the attention started to pour in. First there was Central Michigan. Charlie Frye — former Cleveland Browns quarterback and then-CMU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach — offered Drew, who then desperately tried to call his parents out of excitement.

“I had just changed jobs so I was literally in maybe the second or third day of the job. And he’s trying to call us and I wasn’t answering the phone,” Dawn said with a laugh. “And I don’t think Kevin answered either and he was getting really frustrated that we weren’t answering the phone. ... I think Drew was so excited to meet Charlie Frye that I think he told him, ‘I have your jersey.’”

Then came everyone else, including a relatively early offer from Penn State head coach James Franklin. It didn’t take long for Drew to have offers from pretty much every school you can think of after that, but he knew what he wanted.

It took less than two months for Drew to commit to the Nittany Lions and he didn’t waver from that pledge during the rest of the recruiting process.

“The way that Coach Franklin and (offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich) handled everything,” Kevin said. “You couldn’t ask for a better situation.”

While interest came from other schools later, Kevin said one of the things that impressed him most about his son during his recruitment was that he always had a keen eye for why someone was reaching out to him when they did.

“The thing about the recruiting process, is he was able to tell what schools were the piggyback schools,” Kevin said. “As far as, ‘Oh if this school offered him, we better call him.’ He was able to weed those people out.”

Bringing it all together

Drew arrived at Penn State as a five-star quarterback and with more than a few fans expecting him to be the next great quarterback in program history. That can lead to an inflated ego and an expectation that he should be taking over the program as its leader and signal caller as soon as he gets onto campus.

Many quarterbacks would have fallen into that ego trap, but Drew was not one of them. He knew he was stepping into a situation where Sean Clifford was the starter and would likely remain the starter while he spent his freshman year learning from the veteran quarterback.

Drew was fully prepared for it and ready to learn under Clifford, his mom said.

“Drew was 17 when he went to college,” Dawn said. “When you think about who you want your 17-year-old kid spending every waking minute of every day, I mean there isn’t a higher caliber person or football player than Sean Clifford. ... We’re extremely grateful for the way it’s always worked out. Drew has always had to prove himself. So it’s not anything new to him and that didn’t bother him and it still doesn’t bother him because it’s just the nature of college football.”

Plans can change quickly, though, and they did in his first game as a Nittany Lion. Penn State took on Purdue in the 2022 season opener in front of a loud crowd at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, with Clifford leading the way. But in the second half, he came out due to injury and it was Drew’s time to debut.

It was so unexpected that Dawn didn’t believe it at first.

“I was actually at the concession stand. I was in line and my daughter called. She’s like, ‘Mom, Sean’s in the locker room, Drew’s warming up. He’s getting ready to go in.’ And I’m like, ‘Ryann, shut up that’s not even funny.’” Dawn said between laughs. “She goes, ‘No mom, you need to come back.’”

Drew completed two of his four passes before Clifford returned and led the team to victory. The freshman wasn’t done there in his first year, going on to see action in 10 games as the backup to help him prepare for eventually taking over.

And now that time has arrived.

He is likely going to take the field on Sept. 2 against West Virginia under the bright lights of a Beaver Stadium night game for the first time as the starting quarterback at Penn State. There will inevitably be ups and downs as there is in any football career, but there is little doubt that those ups can go as high as one can imagine.

Eventually a time will come to wonder on just how good Drew can be, but for now, there is just West Virginia. A moment he has spent years building toward.

Maendler was up close and personal to his development as his quarterback trainer and believes, if this is his time to start, that he will meet the moment.

“The game is not going to be too big for him,” Maendler told the CDT. “He prepares so incredibly well. He knows that playbook at just an incredibly deep level. I’ve heard that from coaches numerous times. ... When I hear things like that, his natural talent is just gonna take over. He’s gonna have ups and downs his first year. There’s gonna be trials and tribulations like there always is. But he’s as prepared as you can be.”

Maendler’s presence in Drew’s development is undeniable. He has helped him make strides few others could on the field. So is that of the Johnson family, who have witnessed his growth on and off the field as close family friends and an impactful coach and teammate.

But those impacts are only outweighed by that of Dawn and Kevin, who fostered a love and passion for family and football that has pushed him to this moment.

“They’ve done just a tremendous job of raising me and my sister,” Drew said. “They sacrificed a ton of their free time to take us everywhere and give us tremendous opportunities growing up and providing us with stuff that not a lot of kids were able to have growing up just because of different circumstances.”

And while Saturday night may feel like a culmination of the time and care everyone has given him — the realization of a football dream — it isn’t.

It’s only the beginning.