The McShay Show - Scouting Drew Allar: How the Penn State QB Can Be a Top 10 Pick in 2026

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Welcome back to The McShay Show! Todd and Steve are back with their Summer Scouting Series to break down the tape of Penn State quarterback Drew Allar. The guys talk Allar’s upside as a pocket passer, why Todd’s comp for him is a mid-career Joe Flacco, and more. (0:00) Welcome to The McShay Show! (7:55) Oregon's Evan Stewart suffers significant knee injury(10:55) Summer Scouting Series: Evaluating Drew Allar(21:45) Breaking Down Drew Allar's Tape(30:50) Projecting Allar's 2025 Season In the next episode, they’ll be diving into the tape on Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza. Be sure to subscribe to ‘The McShay Report’ for full written breakdowns of every player discussed in the Summer Scouting Series. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Todd McShayGuest: Steve MuenchProducers: Tucker Tashjian, Mark Panik, Conor Nevins, and Daniel ComerSocial: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scouting. It's a lot like pimping. It ain't easy, man. Summer scouting series continues with Drew Aller today. And there's a lot to unpack. Just 319 days until the NFL draft. Minch, you good? I'm great, man. All right, let's hit it.

I read all the comments now. I told you this before. I read all the comments. I like it's a friendly neighborhood. But it's not without anger and frustration, Mesh. There's honesty there. I'm told to shut up. Shut up about schedules.

shut up about thanking us shut up about, you know, you're scouting, like all these different things. So I will shut up. Just a few housekeeping items real quickly. Okay. First of all, the McShay report, just subscribe. Google it. Go subscribe. Today came the Drew Aller report. And that's who we're going to, we're going to break down today. The interesting one. We're going to get into it for a chunk today. That's going to be the focus of our show today as we continue the summer scouting season. series. And part of the summer scouting series is to take the time when we have the time, go through the tape, both Mention and I independently, I was with Metsch the other night.

Now get to that to a second, in a second, but we like, we knew we had watched the tape. We like, we refused to talk to one another about it until we're on this show. I think it's, I just like the process because I've always wanted to have a show where like the conversations, the meetings and everything that we do, uh, leading up to the draft is shared with our, with our audience. And so that's what we're going to do. I don't want to say thank you to everyone for supporting the show, but tell people how they can support us. I'll say it.

Yeah, go ahead. Thank you for listening and subscribing. Go to the YouTube channel, the McShay show, hit the subscribe button, hit the follow button on Spotify. Please consider, like Todd said, subscribing to the McShay report. There's some good stuff in there. I know, listen, I know it's June. I get it, but this stuff is interesting and you're going to want to be able to look back on it

and see where this guy was at this point in the process. So just consider looking into it. All right, because we are 319 days away from the draft, we have a little bit of time to just cut it up and talk, right? I wanted to share with the audience something. I don't know that, like, I feel like on the show, people are starting to get us, get to know us a little bit more intimately,

and they will more over time. And I think you and I are both people who are happy to share. Maybe not the most interesting lives in the world, but we're happy to just what's going on in our lives. I had an awesome weekend, and it was highlighted by going up to Derry, New Hampshire. I just wanted to take a minute. Like the long short of it is, it was Steve's daughter's graduation from college, Amaya.

And so, Merison and I were like, yeah, let's get in the car. Let's drive up. You know, not that long a drive hit 93 right on up. By the way, munch is an absolute softy when it comes. Like, it's easier to get from Derry, New Hampshire, to Boston, just for people to get perspective than it is from where I live in the, on the coast. of Massachusetts to Boston time-wise. I thought it would take you two hours.

Like I thought it would take you two hours. It took me an hour and 20 minutes. It was a piece of cake. You act like we live in different countries. Like there's a plane and a ferry between us and there isn't. So that was in lightning. That was in light. You see how close you are.

But I just want to share this with the audience. Like there are times in life where as a man or as a woman, but men more often, I feel like in my experiences, they don't step up to the plate in life, right? And you're faced with something in its fight or flight. It's either embrace it and be awesome or, or, you know, I'm just, it's too much for me to handle. It's Mench's story and Munch, Mention can tell his story. But I just want to share with the audience like that, that beautiful bearded man with the blink or blank hat that he's wearing.

And he was, he was faced with some, some circumstances in life. And he had an opportunity to step up or kind of run. My man stepped up. And so I've known him for. Like 28, 29 years now. We've worked together for almost 25 years. And I've got to, you know, I was at his wedding. It feels like 50.

I know. I don't know. But just, so I'm at this graduation party and we're celebrating Amaya, who's wonderful accomplishments and is getting ready to move back to New York City and to carry on her life. And I'm sure it's going to be a wonderful young professional life and enjoy all the wonderful things about Manhattan. Right.

And I live there fresh out of college. And I was kind of sharing some of the experience. experiences with her. And it's just a cool, like high energy place to start your career with. And it's you either got to be unbelievably rich or just be poor and deal with it. You know, those are the two things. Yeah. But the point of all of this is my man, Mench, like to see a blended family and everything he's done, it was like a celebration of, everything that Munch has done, his wonderful wife, Iris. Like, Iris is the glue. Don't get this twisted. I think everyone involved in this note knows. But.

But Mench has been the man, you know, and he stepped up. And so to spend that time with Amaya, who just, you know, I haven't seen her since she was a kid, man. And like to see me from like distance and come up running up and big hug and the smile and just a just beautiful young woman. Like in all all the ways that you could ever imagine and want your daughter to be. And then to meet Tyler, who Mench has has a podcast with and he's doing great. he's 25 years old and he's moving on with his professional life and talking about golfing and the podcast he does with with Steve and they're just and and and even like jasmine jasmine came up and it grabbed me and marissa and you know big hugs and we didn't get to see stella who's his five-year-old

and she's a bet yeah he's got a big gap between kids keeping them young uh but i've met her on face time but she was five years old it's not the that was not the event for her um but just to see it all was really cool. So I just wanted to share that with you, Mench. I'm prouds like condescending. I'm really pleased to see where you are in life, where your family is, how hard I know you've worked to get your family to where they are. And just to give the audience a sense of like the man you are and everything that's that's not football and what you've gone through. So I appreciate you allowing us to be a part of that. And it was a beautiful, beautiful thing. So that was cool. Yeah, appreciate it. Great wife, great kids. It's all about that.

I really didn't do much. Yeah, let's keep it moving. This is uncomfortable for me. I will say the one thing. You missed the biggest part of the weekend, which is Buxton's pizza. The place that we had it at, their pizza is unbelievable. Restaurants unbelievable. If you're in Derry, if you're in Southern New Hampshire, if you're anywhere near the air.

I didn't want to share it because I feel like an expansion, an expansion needs to come. Like for the property and one more, one more oven. I'm a lunatic. I can't go to a great restaurant or especially. like a place with pizza and not like got to talk to the owner like who's right process what's give me i'm telling you put it in new york city and people are talking in new york city about this is one of the best that our city has to offer and there's nowhere better in the world including like napole in italy like the home of pizza uh that has better pizza so yeah that place is awesome it is a hidden gem

i hope there's an expansion in the future because because what they're putting out of that oven, man. Like, more people need to get an opportunity to eat it. Yeah. And we need to move on, but I do appreciate you and Marissa coming up. It was really nice you guys to make the show. Of course, of course. Quick news, unfortunate news.

Evan Stewart, wide receiver from Oregon. Just learned in the last couple days a torn Pateler tendon. It's going to jeopardize the 2025 season. It really does suck. And I was... There's no other way to say it, right? I mean, it just sucks. and I think he came back.

I think he came back because he didn't finish the season he wanted to, was kind of nicked up. There was talking to some scouts, like, man, he's got some growing up to do. He's like a lot of players, the NIL and a little bit of entitlement and all those sorts of things. But like not a bad guy by any stretch, just got to do a little growing up.

So when I talked to scouts in the league about Evan Stewart, it was, yeah, Taz is awesome on Saturdays. this guy is the guy, you know, and just watching, watching tape. Like, this is even before watching the season. It's like, oh, yeah, I see it. He's special. And so we're talking to the first round wide receiver who's not likely now to play during the season, and it's a hit.

And it's too bad to see. But you just hope for a full recovery. He's a season away from staying healthy and putting that tape back out there from potentially working his way back into the first round. but it was just unfortunate news that I think was, you know, it's important to share it on this show. Yeah, I guess it's better now than in camp or in September, but it, you know, it's not great.

Yeah. So that's a hit for the ducks. I had another conversation with the scout actually this morning. Days running long. I thought it was last night. It was this morning. And we're just kind of exchanging notes going back and forth on text. I call them conversations because I feel like half my conversations now.

right um and it was interesting because the the scouting world is a it's a cynical bunch understandably like you know we you sign up for finding the flaws and and you know all you know all those sorts of things uh and you're on the road a lot you're staying at terrible hotels and eating terrible food and you're grinding out you know a hundred miles between stops and all that uh but it was interesting to hear a scout who was like, yo, this quarterback class has got a chance to be his, in his word, sick. It's exciting, right? It's exciting.

We'll see what happens. I know. We can be excited in June, right? We can just be excited of the potential. We're allowed to be. The sun's out in the northeast. Weather's getting warm. I hear the birds chirping when I wake up in the morning.

And we got quarterbacks in the 2026 class. Like, how blessed am I right now? Right. Yeah. You know? Is it fun? It is. We had a hard time not talking about it on Saturday.

There are a couple false starts of, whoa, no, no, leave it to the show. We'll talk about it then. Because I mean, that's, you know, we have other stuff to talk about. I was excited about some of those things we were saying. All right. Today's Drew Aller.

And if you're just joining today, we're going through summer scouting series. We're going through the top quarterbacks first. We're going to get to a couple of units like that are highly skilled that we, like Clemson's defense is one of them. I'll give you an example. We're going to do a couple of those things. Go tigers.

go through some day. There you go. Getting back in the good graces. And we'll get to some position groups and as we continue our scouting process throughout the summer. Drew Aller, 6-5, 238 pounds. Estimated 490 40-yard dash based off of, you know, past, you know, high school combines, all that stuff.

Call it what it is. Big dude. Big dude. All right. Go ahead. Yeah. Bigger than a lot of the other quarterbacks we've been watching. I mean, this guy, he's not, he's not Lenora's seller is quite that size, I don't think, but he is a big dude.

And he carries it pretty well. He's not fast. We'll get into this a little bit more. But he carries it pretty well. So Aller played kind of, I think he had 60 past attempts in 2022. Right. A few years, okay? Excuse me, took over the full-time starting job in 2023,

completed just basically 60 percent of it's 59.9 percent of his throws 25 touchdowns. Did I write that down? Maybe I found my first two interceptions. Is that right? Yeah, his touchdown to interception ratio is insane. It was that actually that year I have a little nugget on this. It's 4.9 to 1 the last two years. He joined interception ratio is.

Yeah, he joined Tennessee's Henning Hooker, who did it in 2022 the year before, as the only FBS quarterbacks ever to throw 25 plus touchdowns and two or a few interceptions in a season. So I didn't write it down, wrong. No, that's right, man, 25 and 2. All right, but despite. First year started in the Big Ten. Yeah, and despite that, though,

I think everyone agrees from Penn State fans to his coaching staff to NFL Scouts. Everyone agrees, it was a nice jump. It was the kind of jump you want to see in terms of performance from first year starter to second year. starter. Okay. It was boom, boom.

And in this past year, 66.5%. 24 touchdowns, almost identical, eight interceptions. But more so like what you saw on tape, I saw a big improvement, okay? We talked about that we've tried at different variations as we go through the summer scouting series. I like when we just go through and play the guessing game, one through five on the quarterback specific traits. Those traits include mental makeup, accuracy.

release slash arm strength and pocket mobility. Okay. I'm going to say it. Mench is going to tell me his grade. I'm going to tell you mine. And then we're going to take time and break it all down. We're going to let Mench start again because he's doing such a great job doing that. All right.

Mental makeup. One being exceptional. Two good. Three average. Four below average. Five is marginal. It's like golf. The lower the number, the happier you are at the end of the day.

Mental makeup, one through five. What you got? 2.5. Oh, you're giving out 0.5s now. Yeah. Now, I'm just like, I was gave it 2.8 to get under your skin, but 2.5. Interesting. I gave him 1.5.

Mm-hmm. All right. Well, we'll come back to that. I'm not surprised. Yeah. Accuracy. Two. I gave them a three and I got a lot to get into here.

I do too. I hear you. I, that'll be good back and forth. Release arm strength. 1.5. I gave him a one, but I'm good with 1.5. Yeah, I was kind of teetering. Yeah, I'm good with that.

We're both saying the same thing. It's really, really good. It might not be top, top line. And it's not, but it's really damn good. Pocket mobility, one through five. Three. I gave them four, but I hear you. I gave him four, but I hear you.

Okay. Good. So we get some stuff to talk about. Yeah. Um, Where do you want to go? Where do you want to start? Want to start with the arm?

No, I don't care. You don't have to be beholden to any category here. Any of the four specific traits. Yeah, just take it somewhere and I'll bounce it off of you. Go ahead. I see all of the tools necessary to develop and do an elite pocket passer. I see the arm strength. When he is on a roll and when, and we're going to get into this,

when he throws with a strong base, he throws on time, and his feet are right, he can pick defenses apart. He can take them apart. I've talked about layered throws, about quarterbacks who can drop the ball in over linebackers, guys who can do that. I really like that.

You talk about play 49 against Notre Dame in that playoff game. He layers a ball right over the linebacker, hits Tyler Warren and stride. I'm like, man, that's an NFL throw. I love when he makes plays like that. I think it was another point. playoff game was Boise State when he hit Tyler Warren in the corner of the end zone,

the touch, the timing. Then there, you know, you look at the arm strength, play 75 against Oregon. He's got a defender basically pulling him backwards. So there is, it's no lower body. There is no lower body on this throw. And he gets enough zip and velocity to throw a touchdown pass late in that game. Again, when he's right and when he's on a roll, I think he's got, and to get in the pocket mobility really quickly for this, because when I'm talking about it being in a

lead pocket passer. He's, he's kind of got heavy feet. I get it. He's not a guy that's going to blow you away with the way he moves, but he has enough of a feel for it to move around and create space and extend plays. There was more than on one occasion. I was like, I, this, that should have been a sack. I don't know how he's extending that play because he's not that kind of an athlete, but he finds ways. And the same thing with scrambling. Every once in a while, he just tucks it, gets five or six, seven yards, whatever he needs to get the first down. So it's not, it's not, it's not, an elite trait, but it's good enough. Aller to me was one of the more complex. I started this whole show off by comparing scouting to pimpet, right? It ain't easy. And guys like Alar,

guys like Alar make it make it challenging. And I'm not even saying that as a negative, but some guys, it's like, yeah, I know what he is. And I actually know what Heller is. My question with Alar is the parts that are that leave you lacking or leave you wanting or that are lacking in his game the complex part is for me at least can he improve in those areas okay that's the complexity for me now let me let me explain so there's a whole bunch of positives with him and there and there's a whole bunch of positives that positives that translate to the NFL he's big He's smart. He's tough. He's tall. He sees the entire field. He's got an easy, smooth stroke. He's got a big arm that gets a lot of energy on the football. And you can see that latent throws, whether he's driving it down the field and he's trying to get it over the DB's head. And it comes down. Some guys that flutters down or kind of sails down. His is like, it's like a missile, like a military missile. You know? It's that energy. I wrote the same word, energy, energy, energy. Like all of his throws have. I've got. energy on him. Now, I think he actually sees the whole field and he goes through progressions

pretty quickly for a college quarterback. I really do. I was impressed with the, you know, right, one, two, three, left, back to the middle. Like I, I saw that over and over. I agree. Okay. And here's one of the tricky parts. The mobility portion of it. Yeah, I gave him four pocket mobility. but I want to make it perfectly clear. And this is this, I don't know that I was this late like 233 plays or whatever it was, this late in a, you know, watching tape through a clip reel where I was still trying to like pinpoint how I, like, what's my bottom line here? How do I feel?

I think, I weirdly think he's kind of a decent athlete. Like he's balanced. He will make a guy. miss, but by sliding, he's like, he's got good body control. He knows one to run. He's got good instincts on when to run and all those things. But you said it. His feet are heavy.

Right. He's coordinated. Coordinated. But he's not athletic is kind of how I saw it. He plays under control. He almost knows his limitations, right? He's a big, sturdy, coordinated, like, yeah. Like, I don't know whether I put in athletic here or not, but a big, sturdy,

coordinated, good, like moves well. There's nothing gangly. There's nothing. That's a compliment, by the way. That's a strength. Yeah. Totally. There's nothing awkward in his movement.

He's sturdy. He's well. And when he takes off to run, he's smart. He knows when to take off and run. He knows the moments. He knows. He sees the defensive backs with their back turn. He knows the opportunity moments.

And there are a lot of times on tape where I question myself because I'm like, well, shit, that's like the ninth time in 50 plays where he's tucked the ball and running he's gotten a first down that's productive but it ain't pretty because it's slow and kind of slow footed but he's doing it and that was the hard part right like you never saw a brady do it and that's kind of where some of my flack i i gave him a comp of joe flacko like a younger joe flacko interesting i could not like not like right out of college joe flaco because joe flackleckle because joe flackleckle was weirdly athletic then kind of like mid career joe flacko where it's like not as slow and not quite as like stuck to the pocket as flacko now,

but somewhere in the middle. I don't know. I just the big, strong arm, big guy, kind of really coordinated, has some athleticism to him. But my goodness, there's not a sniff of twitch, suddenness burst. Like I can't even sniff one. Okay. So that's that. And that's not even that complicated.

But it was interesting because I kept looking at him making productive plays with his feet and being like, but he's not fast. He's not sudden. He's not twitchy. He's none of those things, right? Here's the other thing. And I struggle with it until I think I got it. And I don't remember ever writing this about a player before. And that's why I love doing this.

Okay. On platform feed. under room base as you were talking about, Munch. Deadly accurate, thrower of the football. But when forced off the spot, it's like like it drops off the shelf.

And so I'll tell you that, go ahead. There's one, I agree with you for one exception. And it was kind of strange to me. I saw him make a couple throws where he's climbing, where he's going, just attacking the line of scrimmage. And he can do that. I, I wrote here. I said particularly, particularly throwing right.

And with some guys, and we'll get to Mendoza later in the week, some guys, they're a lot better going right than left or left than right. He's equally, like he struggles equally in terms of his accuracy, throwing the football, rolling, right, rolling left, but climbing, not a problem. It's not necessarily on the move. And his feet don't have to be perfect because he makes some of those stores where he's off balance and doing this and climbing and doing like a little slide

and throwing, he's okay. But when he does that roll right or left, it's like, it's weird how inaccurate he is sometimes. Okay. So that's that part of it. Here's the other interesting part of his evaluation. This is the part I've never written now before. He is deadly accurate. If you go back and watch through this lens, he's deadly accurate when the receiver is facing him, sees his numbers, or sharp cutting horizontal or crosser. When it's like, in front of him. Okay. He's deadly accurate.

Like, give him a one accuracy. Okay. When his receivers are running away from him, like I'm talking even flat routes, dumpoffs or a post. And they don't run. And I don't know if it's the wide receivers or if the coaching staff knows.

He's not, he just doesn't have that feel and sense for it. And so I've never written. that before when a receiver's running away from him and he's got i think it's a visualization thing for him and the reason i say that is because if he sees it and knows it even if it's a sharp cutting comeback even if it's a sharp cutting in route or a crosser that he's got to lead a receiver to but if he sees that vision if he can visualize it he's he's great he's not good he's great but when it's kind of like he's got to throw and the guys running away from him he just doesn't have that

feel or visualization to know where to put that ball. All right? And then and then as part of that, I hope people are following this because it was complex when I was writing it. It was more complex when I was watching it. So if the receiver's in front of it, if everything, like he knows where it is, if it's a crosser in cutting route, even a sharp outcutting, anything that's cutting horizontal or back towards him, phenomenal. Running away from. even the quick dump struggles the other part is i this is why i think it is like a visualization thing for him and this is what i don't know like how much can and i assume you can improve that more reps maybe some some different someone else in his year working on so whatever it is

if you notice and i'm not a big pad of the ball twice like when people were talking about that shadr sanders a pro day shit dude i was like if you don't if you don't like shaders pat you're not going to like this kid man because it is so pronounced but But here's the thing with his pat of the ball. And I went back and I started and I drilled into like 20 plays on it. It's he does that quick extra pat. Because he wants the receiver to declare the angle of his brick. Okay.

I love that. I feel like a CIA agent and I decipher the code. I swear to God. I feel like a CIA agent because I'm watching all these things and they don't add up to what you normally see on tape. And it's different than what I'm used to see. seeing. But when you start when I started to put it all together, I'm like, yeah, he needs to see the angle. It's a visualization thing. He'll give an extra pat. He'll throw to a spot in certain things when he knows where it's going. But he wants to see that quick one more step because the

receiver could go horizontal. He could go 60 degree angle, 45, you know, he wants to see that first step out. And so you hear people say, well, he wants to see it. And yeah, he does. But give me a little bit more, and I hope I'm providing a little bit more context here. So that's where I landed on it, and I'm exhausted, I'm out of breath. I feel.

I hear you. I think that's a great point. Love the point. I feel like we're missing the elephant in the room, though. What is the knock on Penn State? They can't win the big game. I've started to say, and I didn't finish. Well, no, it's also their receivers, man.

I understand. The new receiver room this year, it's a big year for Drew Aller. New receiver room this year. They got a couple transfer. the kid that came in from Troy, looks super talented. It's going to be interested to see

if they can get more out of the receivers because obviously you lose Tyler Warren. It's going to be a big turnover, got the great running backs back. Singleton was also a great receiver. I think there's some stuff to be optimistic about it because last year, man, find some guys that can separate

and some guys that can catch the football consistently on the outside. It was bad. It was a glaring weakness. And I get that and it's something you need to take into account. But the knock on Penn State is they can't win the big game.

And for Drew out, Look, this is that run where they went, Oregon, Big Ten, SMU, Boise State, and then Notre Dame in the playoffs, the last three games of the playoff games. He was, he completed 53.2% of his passes with six touchdowns and three interceptions. I thought he was good at times. I thought we talked about this on the show at the time. I thought during the Oregon game, I was encouraged even though we lost that game

because I thought he battled to the end. I thought he made some big time plays at the end. I do not feel the same way. I thought, you know, Boise State and SMU were kind of inferior impotence for them. I thought he would have bigger games, and he didn't. And then on top of that, the Notre Dame game, especially the fourth quarter, I have some issues. He had a, he had Tyler Warren. They were, I think, down seven at the time, or it was tied at the time, maybe.

He had Tyler Warren on, like on a wheel route, basically, and he underthrew it, and they got bailed out by a pass under for Aaron's call because the ball was picked. and if he just puts that ball farther down the field, Tyler Warren walks in with a touchdown. And there was a couple times he did that. He has great touch, but there are times he puts too much air on the ball. There's times where he doesn't know when to drive it

and one to hang it up in the air. And it's great when he gets it right, but there was too much air under that ball. It was the one place he couldn't throw it. It's incomplete out of the back of the end zone and you missed him. Fine. You cannot throw that. Tyler Warren had three Notre Dame players chasing him.

If he just puts the ball ahead of Tyler Warren, it's a touchdown. And then I do think about that interception, 37 seconds left. I love Penn State being aggressive. I love that they want to go and win that game and not wait until overtime. And he throws an interception that basically gives the game away to Notre Dame, to go Notre Dame, kicks the field goal, that's it. That was, to me, you have got to manage the game better than. I know better than that at that point.

I know you want to be aggressive, but you got to manage it better. And then you look at the year before and again, first year starter. I mean, he looked lost against Michigan, Ohio State the year before. His numbers in big games, his performances in big games, again, not all on him. I thought earlier in the year against Ohio State, I thought he was very okay. He's got to be better in those situations if he wants to be the guy. If he wants to be the guy in this class, I think he's got to step up. He's got to get a signature win.

He's got to have a signature game in one of those games. And we haven't seen that yet. Oh, by the way, he was averaging. I forget what he was averaging in terms of yards. I wrote this down, but it was it was fewer than than 200 yards in those games passing. Yeah. It's not good. The Oregon game, I didn't think he was great, but I did love his competitive grit in that game.

Like scrambling, running, fighting, climbing the pocket, like that one 347 left, fourth quarter, or guys hanging from his jersey. Ridiculous throw. There were moments in big games where I saw some competitive fight that I really liked. But you ain't wrong, man. Like my positive notes when I'm looking back at Oregon, the SMU game was like a borderline. Was it the SMU game?

Yeah, the SMU get the pressure stuff in that game. And I wrote down, I was like, Note to 25 opponents study the SMU pressure stuff. They had him. He was off. And I know it was Wendy. It was bad conditions and all that stuff. But he missed on like a simple out to his left.

He missed on a dump off to his back on a rolling left. He missed badly on an in-cutting intermediate throw that he almost always hits. The difference was SMU had him uncomfortable in the pocket. Made a move. If he make a move, he's not as effective. But again, another big game. Boise State, he completed 52% of his passes against Boise State. No touchdowns, 170, or no, three touchdowns, sorry, 171 yards.

But if you remember that game, they kept trying to go deep. They kept going to attack vertically. And it was just, he just wasn't quite the timing and the touch weren't quite there. Yeah, like my notes in the Notre Dame game, misses wildly on dump off and flat, pressure bearing down. Got to get better on these layups. Next play, early jitters, question mark. misses a wheel route to 44, obviously Warren. No pressure on this one.

Makes that throw a lot on tape. So like when you're missing things that you're making throughout this course of the season, there's a lot of the same concepts that he was hitting over and over again. And you start to not make him in these big games. You got to mark it down when you're evaluating. Overthrows running back 10 in the end zone. Required touch, just overthrew it in the back left corner. That was with 57, 51 seconds left left in the,

the first quarter. First play the second quarter, under throws a running back in the flat again, off target to the running back again. He was off target to that running back like four or five times. He was behind it. Would have been an easy touchdown. They'd have settled for a field goal. That was his worst footwork game. There was times where he was, he was locking his hip by his plant foot. I mean, his front foot wasn't opening up to the receiver. He was trying to throw across his body on easy throws. And he was missing him. It was just, it was all, to me, it was all, footwork and whether that's just being fired up for the game and never you know like really settling in uh i don't know i think it is something you can fix that is something when you're

looking at going forward that's an easy fixed i mean not an easy fix but it's something you can fix it's just the footwork last year was an awesome year for him in that he made huge strides and he with not a lot of help on the outside with not a lot of help on the outside and we can't yeah we can't um there there's no over you can't overstate that you can't state that enough because because then it becomes a trust issue then maybe it's why you're patting an extra time i don't think that's the answer but like um but but he had these opportunities right we talk about these quarterbacks now coming in the league with more starts and there's a lot of buzz when we get into the college football playoff like yeah he said he's coming back and yeah his backup transferred

and all those things. But maybe he'll be the, you know, I'm reading, he may be the, you know, number two overall pick in this year's class,

or he, he could be QB2 behind, and like, yeah, maybe, maybe, but I kind of feel like it's a lazy evaluation

at this point. Oh, you know who my comp was, by the way? I didn't go with Flacco. Who? With Will Levis. I saw,

I see a guy who can, who has all, I think that that's a, really good floor ceiling as of where Levis is right now. Floor would be Levis, Flacco would be sealing. I mean, Aller takes better care of the football than Levis did, which is a huge, huge part of that evaluation. Do not get it.

Levis was a better athlete, man. Levis, but both those guys, the arm, the potential, the talent, the natural ability. And for Levis, it just hasn't come together yet. He had that bad last year. But we all thought going into Levis's last year in Kentucky that he was going to have a big year. he was going to be the guy because of the talent, the ability. Hopefully, Aller has a better year than Levis did in his last year at Kentucky, and we'll see, but that's what I see.

I see a guy that can be elite whether or not it comes together remains to be seen at this point. I like him, and I like them more than I thought I was going to. Agree. Watching tape. I see it. And that's why I said, like, I think a lazy evaluation can be made on this guy because he is big. He's got a big arm. He goes through progressions.

He hits a lot of really impressive throws. But there's elements that we talked about, certain kinds of throws, certain throws where you don't see it open, certain throws where he's got to visualize things better. The mobility. What's that going to look like in the NFL with NFL pass rushers running four or five coming off the edge? So there's, I need to see more.

And I need to see him, like you said, play baseball. big and big games. And I need to see where I'm not writing down early jitters. I'm not writing down, you know, SMU defense kind of threw him off and he never got settled in. But because he has this experience, because he went through these wars, and because not everything was a success, he's got very specific things to work on.

Like if I'm, if I'm him in this offseason, it is agility, agility, agility, not because I'm going to be a runner and we're doing RPO shit. here, but because I need to be more effective throwing the ball. And then when I'm done with all my agility work, and I'm never going to be a great, you know, twitchy runner, but I've got to be, I've got to have a little bit more juice when extending the pocket. And when I'm done with my agility work, it's rolling and throwing. It's rolling right, rolling left, rolling right, rolling left.

And then when I'm done with that, there's like, I'm, I, with NIL money, the internet, that the resources that are out there in the world, I'm getting with Peyton now at the Manning Camp and talking about visualization and what are like there's soaking up whatever he can get. Yeah. Right. I'm so, so too. He's here, but there's still a, like, there's still a chunk if you're listening on,

on Apple or Spotify. Like, I'm saying like he, he's like, I don't know, he's down to like the 10 yard line, but he's still got 10, hard yards to earn to get to where I'm like, oh, yeah, like, we can talk about him as QB1 this year. Oh, yeah, like, I feel good about using a top 10 pick on him. And I think he's going to be a high draft pick. I really do, because he's got all those traits. But he's still, there's still stuff that he has to work on and he's got to improve on. And you can say that about everyone. But he's interesting and different because my goodness, he does like almost all the things you look

for in an NFL prospect at that position really well. But there's just a few things that he's not there on yet. So this is going to be a fun year to watch for Penn State. I hope. And I'm not like, I'm worried about this stuff. I'm worried about my kids and summer stuff. Like I'm, I just don't do the NIL. I'm sorry, the transfer portal.

Like I keep an eye on all that stuff. We get to August. We dive into college football. We have all of our connections. We already know it. I mean, we're watching tape constantly. But I don't know what. Penn State is doing receiver-wise, but I hope for him that it's a better crew coming in this

year, you know? Yeah, I hope. Listen, it's not even that you favor Aller. We hope all of these guys. Yeah. It's better for us if we're in December and January and we're talking about, man, I don't, they're all so freaking good. They've all done so well.

They're all so freaking good, you know? And Aller for me is, I was with you. I kind of exceeded expectations for me. I didn't have a very high opinion after watching some of the stuff last year. I liked him a lot more than I thought. He's put himself in a great, he put himself in a great spot. And now we just hope he goes out

and takes advantage of the opportunity. Yeah. I hope people listening and watching this, don't think this is like, oh, they don't like Al or not. Like, I'm literally telling you, I'm sitting here telling you, he is so damn close and he is so damn talented.

And I do legitimately think he has a chance to be a top 10 pick. I'm not worried about that stuff, though. I'm not worried about who my QB1. I'm talking about what's he going to be in the league. And I just, we just both laid out where here are the areas he needs to show improvement. And if he does in those areas and you see it's still ascending and the arc is still getting high, like he's got a chance to be really good, like really good.

Joe Flacco won a Super Bowl. Right. You know. So that's that. All right. Awesome job. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. What? I can't wait. What is this? The Mendoza line. Thursday.

You already got a thing for it. All right, great. The Mendoza line. I'm telling you, listen, we're not breaking news this time of year, but it's kind of breaking news on Thursday. Check back in this show, like, holy smokes.

And I'm going to give credit to Mench on Thursday. I'm not going to do it right now because it's time to go. But Thursday's going to be a special fun show. We'll see you then. Thanks. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.

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