How the Big 12 landed Colorado and shook up college football
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Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Writer
On July 21, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff took the stage for media day at a critical time for his conference. USC and UCLA were already on their way out, and Colorado was rumored to be next as the league struggled to complete a TV deal.
Kliavkoff told a room full of media members and anyone watching that “our schools are committed to each other and the Pac-12.”
While Kliavkoff spoke, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark was wrapping up a regularly scheduled Zoom call with his athletic directors. As he completed an otherwise mundane meeting, he foreshadowed the big news to come without mentioning any school by name or any details.
“He said, ‘Guys, I’m not going to tell you anything,'” a source on the call said. “‘I’m just feeling really good about it. If it doesn’t happen next week, then it’s probably not going to happen for a while. But you’ll find out five minutes before it happens.’ And that’s basically what happened.”
The near simultaneous unfolding of two vastly different messages from two of the most powerful people in college athletics on a sweltering Friday in July was uncanny. Five days later, the Big 12 presidents and chancellors held a private call during which they voted unanimously to accept Colorado as a member. The next day, on July 27, the Colorado board of regents voted in favor of the move in a public videoconference — a swift formality that lasted less than 16 minutes and put an end to months of speculation about the future home of the Buffaloes.
For the third straight summer, conference realignment has been one of the biggest stories in college athletics — and for the second straight year, the Pac-12 is the league scrambling to pick up the pieces. In 2021, Big 12 co-founders Oklahoma and Texas announced their intent to join the SEC. In 2022, USC and UCLA decided to join the Big Ten, arguably an even more shocking move, given the geographical mismatch with the Big Ten and the history of the Pac-12’s flagship schools. All of those sweeping changes combined with new leadership and media rights deals contributed to where the Power 5 pecking order sits today — with Colorado leaving the Pac-12 in a precarious position.
Colorado’s flirtation with the Big 12 was one of the worst-kept secrets of the offseason.
“Do I think I caught my peers off guard?” Colorado athletic director Rick George said. “I don’t believe so, but that’s a question you have to ask them.”
“There was smoke,” one Pac-12 source said. “Smoke was being shown everywhere on this deal. So I don’t think it’s surprising. It was pretty clear and obvious for several months that Colorado was considering this move.”
It wasn’t necessarily the decision to leave that stunned the Pac-12 — it was the timing of it. Multiple sources told ESPN that on June 30, the Pac-12’s presidents and chancellors voted unanimously — including Colorado — to authorize Kliavkoff to set July 31 as the deadline for all of the league’s bidders on its new media rights deal. Those on the Zoom moved forward — and Kliavkoff walked onto the stage in Las Vegas believing the league would stay intact at least until all the bids were in.
“Pissed off is the wrong word,” a Pac-12 source with knowledge of the vote said. “[Pac-12 presidents and chancellors] were livid. Can’t overstate the betrayal.”
The Big 12 has been burned before too.
“We were on the other end of that barely two years ago,” a Big 12 athletic director said. “What we’re trying to do is just change our position. You’re either growing and you’re moving to try to best position yourself, or you’re vulnerable. For the first time, the Big 12 is moving in the other direction. If I had to choose which side of that I’d rather be on, I’d rather be on this one, for sure.”
KLIAVKOFF’S CONFIDENCE IN his conference membership at media day was strikingly similar to the comments made by then-Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who in July 2021 also stood before members of the media, saying, “a lot of the motivation for realignment is no longer there.” A week later, there was a bombshell report that the Big 12’s biggest brands wanted out.
“If you think back when we lost Oklahoma and Texas, the Pac-12 could have been as aggressive as we were,” a Big 12 source said. “Texas Tech would have gone to the Pac-12 in 10 seconds if they would have given them a call, and they never did. They had chances long before this to take control, and they didn’t.”
In August 2021, Kliavkoff and Bowlsby met at an undisclosed location to discuss the possibility of a merger, or some sort of partnership, but it never materialized.
“They were in the driver’s seat,” said Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt. “There was a lot of speculation about the future of the Big 12. They were not in a growth mindset. Insert Brett Yormark. It’s full-tilt forward.” When Yormark was hired after Bowlsby stepped down in 2022, his message rang loud and clear.
“The Big 12 is open for business,” Yormark said in his introductory news conference at Big 12 media days last year.
“We all chuckled and laughed about that,” Hocutt said, “but there’s more behind that statement than people understood. It hasn’t changed from the day he was announced as our commissioner.”
Yormark wasn’t just referring to conference realignment. His first priority was getting the league’s TV deal done. Yormark landed a six-year, $2.2 billion television deal with ESPN and Fox that runs through 2031. The Big 12 opened its negotiations early and completed its agreement before the Pac-12, even though the Pac-12’s current television deal ends a year earlier. Although it’s impossible to untangle previous realignment from what Colorado ultimately chose to do, the Pac-12’s slow process in negotiating its own media rights deal undoubtedly weighed heavily into the process. “It’s not like Brett’s been quiet about hinting and taking a Pac-12 school,” a source said. “He’s put some stuff out there on purpose.”
Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades told ESPN the Big 12 was able to flip its position in the national landscape because two things happened: The conference announced in September 2021 that it would add Houston, UCF, Cincinnati and BYU, which helped change the narrative that the league was falling apart, and Yormark was able to negotiate a win-win media rights deal for the league and its media partners before going to market — and before the Pac-12.
“We had no leverage because we couldn’t go to the open market,” Rhoades said. “The fact we were able to get that done … for us, goal No. 1 was stability. Goal No. 2 was finances. Make no mistake, that was the order of priority. If we don’t get that done, this is a completely different story.”
With the television deal done, and an early exit plan for OU and Texas in place — plus the assurances of four new schools joining the league this summer — the Big 12 decision-makers began a deeper dive into the possibility of adding more teams. They discussed UConn, Pac-12 schools, and even the scenario of adding Gonzaga for basketball only.
At the spring Fiesta Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, where multiple conferences gather annually for league meetings, representatives from Endeavor presented Big 12 decision-makers with slides of various schools, including Arizona and Arizona State, and valuations of various television scenarios.
School officials from Colorado met with Big 12 officials at a neutral site in early May, a source told ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Colorado had expressed interest and emerged as a legitimate candidate so much so that athletic directors and administrators at the Fiesta Summit joked about it over beers at the resort pool after days during which the Big 12 and Pac-12 held meetings across the hall from each other.
“Colorado was the one that was consistent,” another Big 12 source said. “It was directly between Brett and Rick George the majority of it throughout the process.”
Meanwhile, the Pac-12 media deal remained slow to materialize.
“I think in May was when [it became], ‘OK, Colorado’s really nervous and probably the most interesting,'” a source said.
When asked to describe Yormark’s approach behind the scenes, one Big 12 source said, “aggressive, and I’m not apologizing for it.”
On June 2, after Big 12 spring meetings in West Virginia, Yormark publicly touted the conference as having “a plan” when it comes to expansion. The athletic directors told Yormark at that meeting that if the league was going to add another school, their priority was a Power 5 program. The Big 12’s presidents and chancellors met after the athletic directors and gave Yormark the approval “that if Brett could make Colorado happen, he had the permission from the presidents to do it.”
“Since then,” another league source said, “that’s what he’s been working on.”
ACCORDING TO BIG 12 sources, there was “a very close circle” that knew Colorado’s intentions about three weeks before it happened and discussions turned to action about 10 days before the move became official.
On July 19, just two days before Kliavkoff would speak at media day, Colorado chancellor Phil DiStefano told The Denver Post he had not had any direct negotiations with Yormark or the Big 12. He said the school’s goal “is to stay within the Pac-12 and have a media deal coming up shortly. That’s our goal. And I believe the presidents and chancellors of the Pac-12 are together on that.”
They were.
On the eve of the Pac-12’s media day, Kliavkoff met with the league’s athletic directors for what was a lengthy, substantive update, according to sources with knowledge of the discussion. Multiple sources said the Pac-12 presidents respect Kliavkoff, and the athletic directors haven’t been involved much in the expansion discussion. In Las Vegas, they were told the same timeline the university presidents and chancellors had unanimously agreed on in June.
“Yes, there were warnings,” one Pac-12 source said. “Yes, everybody in America knew they were considering this. But I also believe the decision-makers truly believed the word coming out of [Colorado] that they had until the end of [July] to make that decision, and [Colorado] did it earlier than what they said they were going to do.”
In an exclusive interview with ESPN immediately after his remarks at media day, Kliavkoff pointed to DiStefano’s comments in the Post as the source of his confidence. Kliavkoff declined further comment for this article. What Kliavkoff didn’t address was DiStefano’s comments about expecting an update on the media rights deal on the eve of media day. “You could tell he was putting them on a different timeline publicly,” a Pac-12 source said. “As soon as he did that, I was like, ‘Oh they’re gone.'”
Through a university spokesman, DiStefano issued the following statement on Aug. 3: “We disagree with the assertions that have been stated. The main reason we made the decision when we did was because it’s in the best interest of the university, CU athletics, and most importantly, our student athletes. We look forward to starting our final season in the Pac-12 and are excited about our future in the Big 12 beginning in 2024.”
At the conference’s media leading into what would be their final season, Colorado AD George bolted early without comment, further fueling the speculation that the university would soon follow him out the door.
A week later, DiStefano appeared on camera in the board of regents’ videoconference, sitting next to the school’s athletic director as it was made public that the Big 12 “has offered admittance to the University of Colorado Boulder as part of conference expansion.”
“I think there’s a misconception at least from some schools that Brett is ruthless in his pursuit, and I just don’t think it’s that way at all,” said TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati. “Brett’s set a vision and a platform for our conference that’s incredibly attractive, candidly, and I think that’s ultimately why Colorado decided to come back to the Big 12.”
OF ALL THE schools engulfed in all of the speculation, Colorado always made the most sense because of its previous ties to the Big 12, where it was a member from 1996 to 2010, and in the Big Eight for 47 years before that. The idea gained further traction with the hire of coach Deion Sanders, who has yet to coach his first game with the Buffaloes but has already reignited interest in a program that has had no bowl wins and just two winning football seasons since joining the Pac-12 in 2011.
“Quite frankly, Deion was pushing for it,” one Big 12 head coach said.
George said he spoke with all of his head coaches about the potential move, but also acknowledged that playing in the Big 12 will align with how Sanders is recruiting.
“I will tell you there’s tremendous benefits for being in the Big 12 for the direction that Coach Prime is going as it relates to recruiting,” George said. “Being able to play in Orlando against UCF, where he’s recruited very heavily. The state of Texas has always been a priority for us, and now playing four teams in that area. … I tried to include all of our coaches in this, and Coach Prime certainly and I had conversations about this, as well as I did with other coaches.”
George, who declined to comment for this story beyond his public remarks from a July 27 news conference on campus, insisted that Colorado’s decision “wasn’t about” any failures by Kliavkoff or frustrations with a lack of a media rights deal.
“George Kliavkoff is doing as good a job as he can do, and he works his ass off and works tirelessly for the members of the Pac-12,” George said. “But this decision wasn’t about that. It was about this, and that’s the Big 12 Conference and what’s best for CU and CU athletics and our student-athletes, and that’s what we made this decision based on.”
Colorado’s departure will coincide with the end of the Pac-12’s television deal, which expires after the 2023-24 season, meaning Colorado won’t have to pay an exit fee. Colorado is expected to join the Big 12 at a pro rata basis, which is an average of $31.7 million in television revenue per year over the course of the league’s new deal starting in 2025.
“Was money a part of it? Absolutely,” one Big 12 athletic director said. “But [George] saw a better direction with the Big 12 than what was happening in the Pac-12. It was more than just the money.”
George agreed the move was “not just based on money or finances.”
“Certainly, revenue and expenses are part of the equation,” George said. “We have looked at the cost that we will be incurring from team travel in the Big 12, as well as the initial rebranding. And when we consider the Big 12 revenue, we believe it’s a great win for the University of Colorado. The revenue was not just from the media deal — and there’s a lot of talk about that — but from other revenue streams, and we believe that’s positive.
“We believe the benefits far outweigh the costs for the move into the Big 12 Conference,” he added. “Because college sports evolve, so do conferences. It’s our responsibility to put CU in a position of strength for the future. And as an AD, conference realignment is always something that we’re looking at. I feel strongly that today’s decision positions the University of Colorado for years to come.”
The question remains, though, how the move will position everyone else.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — In the predawn darkness, Drew Allar pulls his SUV into the Penn State football facility every Monday around 5:45 a.m. He beats many of the coaches into the building and often starts his day by slugging down a blueberry lemonade flavored G.O.A.T. Fuel.
The drink is consumed for the caffeine jolt, not the inspiration. But as Allar enters his fourth and final season as Penn State’s quarterback, he remains locked in on finding the elusive edges that will allow the collision of his talent and development to lead to a breakthrough for the program, his coach and his own promising career.
Allar, 21, is a throwback quarterback who has come of age in perhaps the flashiest era in college football history. Allar bloomed so late that he didn’t start at Medina High School until four games remained in his sophomore year. He is appreciative of waiting his turn to start at Penn State behind Sean Clifford, and multiple coaches pointed out that he still dates his high school sweetheart.
After 26 wins as a starter the past three seasons, and possessing the raw potential at 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds to be the top quarterback picked in the 2026 NFL draft, Allar knows what’s next will determine both his Penn State legacy and professional trajectory. And he knows exactly how he’ll do it.
“I think it’s kind of my story,” Allar told ESPN recently. “It’s about the process, and not really the end result. So just immersing yourself in the hard work, the unseen work.”
The last time we saw Allar on a national stage, he trudged off the field in the wake of perhaps the most punitive interception thrown during the 2024 season. Allar’s interception in the final minute led directly to Notre Dame’s game-winning field goal with 7 seconds left in a College Football Playoff semifinal.
Allar responded by immediately returning to campus and resuming his predawn routines, flanked by a roster, program, coaching staff and administration that Franklin says is the best he has had in his dozen years in State College.
“You look at a lot of teams that have gone on and had special years, they had some type of experience the year before that helped them, that equipped them for that next season and that next moment,” Franklin told ESPN this summer. “Some of those challenges are going to harden us.”
Penn State began the season No. 2 in the AP Poll — the school’s highest ranking since 1997. One NFL team put 11 draftable grades on Penn State players in the preseason. (The school record for a draft is 10 back in 1996.)
With No. 6 Oregon in town on Saturday for No. 3 Penn State’s first challenge this season (7:30 p.m., NBC) and Franklin’s 4-20 record against Top 10 teams looming, Allar’s final mission hits an inflection point: How will he lead Penn State on the final steps from great to elite, perhaps the trickiest terrain in sports?
The answer can be found in an emoji, which offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki projects to the unit at the start of each meeting — a thumb and forefinger about an inch apart from pinching together.
Fittingly, he calls it “The Difference.”
“It’s The Difference” he has said on repeat this offseason, “between winning or losing.”
Kotelnicki challenged his staff members to flip on the tape to find The Difference in three close losses last season, and they found 17 plays against Ohio State, Oregon and Notre Dame that weren’t executed well enough. A majority of those 17 plays came down to something that needed to be coached more and repped more.
“We always talk about how planes don’t crash because of one big thing,” Allar said. “They crash up because of a bunch of small things that add up, and over time becoming big things.”
Allar’s own physical appearance embodies The Difference, as he’s developed a newfound affinity for tank tops after completing a physical overhaul this offseason that includes Popeye-like biceps.
“No shirt is safe around him now,” Penn State strength coach Chuck Losey jokes. “As soon as he gets a new shirt, there’s no sleeves and half the traps are coming off of it.”
Can Penn State muscle through the final steps and rewrite its tortured high-end history? The cosmic collision of talent, callus and opportunity have Allar and his teammates ready to, well, flex.
THE DEFINING PLAY of Penn State’s 13-3 season in 2024 came in the final 47 seconds of the fourth quarter of the College Football Playoff semifinals against Notre Dame.
With the game tied at 24 and two timeouts remaining, Penn State went all-in on winning in regulation and exhuming its recent big-game demons. On the second play, Allar couldn’t find star tight end Tyler Warren on a buzz flat. So he went through his progressions and forced a ball across the field to Omari Evans.
Notre Dame corner Christian Gray dove ahead of Evans and secured an interception — a play as clutch as it was impressive — with 33 seconds remaining.
“In that moment, I obviously can’t put that ball [there], especially on that side of the field,” Allar told ESPN this summer. “I’m trying to put it where it’s either going to be [Evans] or an incompletion. And I definitely put it where I wanted to somewhat, and I put it low, but I put it too far out.”
Nothing epitomizes the fragility of The Difference more than Allar’s final moment of a promising season, one that came crashing down short of a chance to play for the national title.
Suddenly, even after two CFP wins, all those Penn State ghosts snarled again. After surging into NFL first-round pick conversations late in the year, Allar instead delivered a painful moment that now prompts a powerful hypothetical: If Drew Allar hadn’t thrown the most punitive interception in modern Penn State football history, would the Nittany Lions still be so well positioned to win a title in 2025?
The question is likely to remain rhetorical. Both Allar and Franklin call it a “good question.” Offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki calls it a “hell of a question.”
Allar chews on the topic for a while sitting in a Penn State meeting room back in June. Prior to the CFP, he’d put out a somewhat tepid statement signaling a return to Penn State, saying on Dec. 16 he looks “forward to making more memories with my teammates this year and beyond.”
He starts his answer in June by saying it would have depended on “how the next game went.”
He added: “But honestly, the more I thought about that decision, I was thinking I haven’t really had time to plan out where I trained, where I’d be at or what I’d be doing.
“And the more I thought about it, the more I thought for my future, specifically, the better it would be for me to come back.”
Allar’s roommate and close friend Dominic Rulli made a fascinating prediction on what Allar would have done if Penn State had won the season’s final game: “I think he would’ve left, which would’ve put Penn State in a little bit of a pickle.”
INSTEAD OF A pickle, generational opportunity looms. And as Allar returns as the face of a loaded roster, there’s a roll call of demons for the Nittany Lions to slay on the other side of The Difference.
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There’s been no league title at Penn State since Franklin’s 2016, long enough ago that that team’s quarterback, Trace McSorley, is now a Penn State staffer.
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There’s been no national title at Penn State since 1986, which is nearly two decades before Allar was born in 2004.
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There’s been no Penn State quarterback drafted in the first round of the NFL draft since Kerry Collins in 1995, a streak of 15 different Nittany Lion starters from Wally Richardson to Sean Clifford.
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In James Franklin’s 12-year tenure, Penn State is 104-42 but just 4-18 against Ohio State, Michigan and Oregon.
So what can be The Difference from Penn State going 37-8 since 2022 to winning championships?
It’s easy to start with the coordinator who has endlessly preached The Difference, as he’s also played a big role in making it.
The case for high-end Penn State optimism in 2025 is rooted in its coordinator pairing, as Kotelnicki enters his second season calling plays. The Nittany Lions lured new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles away from national champion Ohio State with a record three-year deal that averages a record $3.1 million per season.
That pairing will be tested for the first time this Saturday. Penn State is 3-0 and still shrouded in mystery after winning by a combined 132-17 over Nevada, FIU and Villanova.
With Kotelnicki calling plays in 2024, Penn State’s offense soared in his first season there. Per ESPN Research, Penn State improved in explosive play percentage to 15.3%, the second-highest rate in the Big Ten behind Ohio State. That’s up from 10.5% in 2023, a season that saw them finish seventh in the league in that category.
Penn State’s offense has reason for optimism beyond Allar, starting with the productive tailback tandem of Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton. There’s also an offensive line anchored by guard Vega Ioane and left tackle Drew Shelton, with Ioane perhaps the country’s top interior line prospect.
“Legitimately, we have the chance to be the best offensive line in college football,” Kotelnicki told ESPN.
Until the arrival of offensive line coach Phil Trautwein in 2020, Penn State’s Achilles’ heel had been the offensive line. That program stigma has shifted to the wide receivers, where Penn State brought in three high-profile transfers this offseason — Trebor Pena (Syracuse), Kyron Hudson (USC) and Devonte Ross (Troy). The referendum on the caliber of that upgrade will come against the Ducks’ defense.
The Difference comes down to execution and technique on small plays, but Franklin is also quick to point toward the hiring of Kotelnicki ($1.7 million this year) and paying Knowles as much as some power conference coaches. The willingness of athletic director Pat Kraft to spend at the sport’s highest level has rippled to the field.
“To be honest with you, everybody’s focused on Jim Knowles,” Franklin said. “I’m going to be honest with you. The year before, we wouldn’t have got Andy Kotelnicki under the old administration.”
So when asked if this is the best Penn State roster he’s seen, Franklin goes broad.
“When you ask that question, it’s not just the quarterback — it’s all of it,” Franklin said. “I look at it holistically.”
He rattles off everyone from Allar and varied position groups to athletic director Pat Kraft to president Neeli Bendapudi to board chair David Kleppinger to donor B.J. Werzyn spearheading the naming rights for the field at Beaver Stadium.
He then nods to the thin margins of The Difference for a program: “It’s all of that, right?”
WHEN PENN STATE trailed USC 20-6 at halftime in the Coliseum last year, Allar didn’t hesitate to vocalize to the coaching staff a clear path to victory.
Despite a first half when Penn State failed to score a touchdown and Allar threw a bad pick, he delivered a blunt message to Franklin: “They’re not stopping the pass, and we really have everything we want in the throw game. Just put the ball in my hands, and I promise I’ll make it work.”
On a sun-splashed afternoon, Allar came of age by calling his shot and authoring a comeback victory, 33-30 in overtime. And he developed a swagger that remains key for Penn State achieving its biggest goals.
Franklin loved Allar’s moxie at halftime, the type of bravado that he’ll need to channel for Penn State to reach its generational goals.
“There was just so much confidence and there was no sense of panic,” Franklin said. “I don’t think there was a doubt, a moment or an ounce of doubt that we weren’t going to go win the game.”
He threw for 258 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the second half alone, and converted a fourth-and-7 and fourth-and-10 on the game-tying drive. There’s no doubt from the staff that they saw The Difference from that day on.
“That was a turning point game for him, I think as a player in his career,” Penn State quarterback coach Danny O’Brien said. “From there, you could just see it was a little bit different with him. Confidence wise, that was that game for him.”
There’s an expectation for highly ranked prospects like Allar to sprint through their careers. He came to Penn State as ESPN’s No. 2 pocket passing recruit, and that label can often become a burden as inherent moments of adversity arise.
One thing Allar has worked hard to transform is his athleticism. While coaches joke he’ll never be mistaken for Lamar Jackson, he has turned himself into a capable athlete. There’s an oversized picture of him stiff-arming a West Virginia linebacker near Kotelnicki’s office in the football facility that serves as a daily reminder of his athleticism.
“He’s got to be a robust athlete on the field who can endure a 16-game season,” said Losey, Penn State’s assistant AD for performance since January of 2022. “When he first got here, he just wasn’t that.”
The up-before-dawn consistency that has defined his time has flashed in the weight room, as Rulli jokes that Allar’s dedication to routine puts him in the weight room easily an hour before anyone else in his lifting group.
Losey personally works out the quarterbacks, an interesting and sensible nuance because the strength coach in college football is an extension of the head coach. It makes sense that he would be hands-on with the most important position.
Allar came to Penn State in the same class as Beau Pribula, now the starting quarterback at Missouri after transferring last December. And Losey can’t help but link them. “When I think of Beau, I think of Drew,” he said. “When I think of Drew, I think of Beau.”
Allar came ready made to play from a preparation standpoint, but behind from a strength and speed standpoint. Pribula arrived physically more prepared, but behind on the field.
Allar arrived with body fat over 20%, and it’s currently under 15. He put on 18 pounds of lean muscle and dropped 10 to 12 pounds of body fat, an intense overhaul reflected in Allar’s wardrobe, now rivaling Pat McAfee’s for tank tops.
Speed followed, as he arrived running a 5.1 40-yard dash and “in the 16s or 17s” on the Catapult GPS. Allar ran a 4.86 this spring in the 40 and has touched over 20 on the Catapult. “That’s outstanding for someone who is 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds,” Losey said.
It didn’t happen overnight, but the finishing touches of the physical overhaul are viewed as the final step for Allar. His fidelity to routine has been The Difference.
Some of it can be attributed to an improved diet, although Allar’s cooking is a bit of a running joke around the Penn State program.
He’ll boil plain pasta in the kitchen and send out pictures, as Rulli jokes, “like Gordon Ramsey made it.” Then there was the time he tried to mix red wine in a dish, and his inability to remove the cork ended with him spraying the white cabinets in their apartment like a misguided postgame locker room celebration.
The finishing touches of hard work and better eating have put Allar in position to fulfill Penn State’s annual tradition of players crushing the NFL combine, a consistent trait from Franklin’s program.
And as Rulli walks through campus and sees students wearing the No. 15 jersey on the way to class, he just chuckles and says to himself: “You have no idea what he’s done and what he has to do and what it takes to do it.”
NFL scouts have taken notice, but want to see the overhaul completed. He’s clustered in the top tier of potential first-round quarterbacks, but some skepticism lingers.
There are two camps on Allar, the camp that sees the talent, athleticism and arm strength and needs more games like USC. And the camp that wonders if he’ll take the next step: “Is he going to be a guy who teases you?” a veteran scout asks. A different veteran NFL scout says Allar “has a chance” to be the No. 1 overall pick, as he showed great strides last year until the Notre Dame game.
“He needs to play more instinctual,” said another scout. “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.”
Amid the “whiteout” Saturday night, he’ll get his first high-leverage chance to showcase how far he’s come. Sun’s down, guns out.
ALLAR GREW UP in a football family. His father, Kevin, played with Charlie Batch at Eastern Michigan. They grew up rooting for the Browns in northeast Ohio, with Joe Thomas his favorite player.
His mom, Dawn, explains the football obsession with a story, recalling how she told Drew what he’d learn while attending Parish School of Religion — a Catholic education program for elementary school students. She told him he’d learn about God and Jesus and the saints.
Drew excitedly shot back: “I’m going to learn about Reggie Bush and Drew Brees.”
Dawn laughs: “Not a proud mom moment; I’m going to have serious answers to give if I ever go to heaven.”
There’s a hokeyness to Allar’s final chapter at Penn State that’s authentic, as he cares deeply about the sport, the place and leaving a deep legacy.
He sees how close McSorley is to his teammates from the 2016 Big Ten title team, and he’s envious of the brotherhood forged from a title run.
“I think for me that’s something I want to do,” Allar said. “I want to have our name up, I want to have our team picture up on the wall somewhere in this last facility where whenever I decide to come back when I’m done here, it’s always something I can look back on and kind of spark memories.”
Those are the old-school ideals that Franklin appreciates, as college football leaps into a new paradigm. He sees those ideals as key to The Difference.
“I am scratching, clawing and fighting to hold on to, in some ways, an old-school football program and a transformational experience and not transactional,” Franklin said. “Well, it helps when your quarterback is approaching it the same way.”
And on his last ride at Penn State, Allar takes his old-school approach to writing a new ending.
“This is now or never,” Rulli told Allar after his decision to return. “We have the pieces.”
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