T-Frank’s Film Room: Drew Allar cuts it loose, Penn State dominates
The Penn State Nittany Lions passing offense took a massive step against Maryland on Saturday. Find out how they were able to crack the code of unlocking quarterback Drew Allar. The result was a complete-game, 51-point performance.
On today’s T-Frank’s Film Room, we’ll break down the difference in Allar from last week to now. Part of his transformation involves what the defense presented to Penn State, and part of it consists of a maturation of the young quarterback. We’ll break down Maryland’s Cover 1 and 0 tactics, how Penn State beat them, and how they forced the Terps to adjust.
Next, we’ll dissect specific plays for scheme and process to show why they were quality options for the team.
Penn State defeats Cover 0
From a schematic standpoint, Cover 0 and aggressive man coverage were a fundamental part of Maryland’s defensive game plan. For head coach James Franklin, it’s the major face game turned out. He addressed it several times in his postgame press conference.
“It just comes back to the cover zero. When you get cover zero, there’s no safety back there. So if there’s two safeties, you can’t put any air on it. If there’s one safety, you can put, it’s almost like in golf terms, in terms of what club you’re going to use. You can put a little bit of air on. And, when there’s no safety, you can put a ton of air on because there’s nobody.
When there’s no safety help, there’s plenty of room for the Penn State receiver to get open.
“It’s truly one on one; he’s got no help whatsoever. So, being able to put air under it in cover zero, those DBs can act confident all they want. When you have the entire 53 and a third to cover, and that balls in the air, and you can’t find it, and they know where it’s going, that’s an advantage for us, especially with some of the height that we have with some of our tight ends and a few of the receivers,” He said.
This is a major factor to why Penn State wideout Dante Cephas had a breakout game. We show in today’s film room how his second touchdown came about, including formation, game flow, and his efforts on the play.
Allar admits he’s playing more loose
It’s been a common theory that the interception at the end of the Indiana game knocked Allar out of a perfectionist mentality and allowed him to play with more confidence. He essentially admitted that after the game.
“I think last week at the end of the game, it clicked for me where I was just out there playing, not trying to be perfect or anything. That mentality has helped me to get to this point. I don’t want to lose that,” Allar said.
The film is chalked full of passes where Allar played with the confidence and vision we’ve seen from him before this season. Check out the full video to learn more.
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