Penn State football: Drew Allar details ‘great’ progress under new OC Andy Kotelnicki

Penn State football is entering a critical stretch of the early 2024 calendar. With three weeks until the start of spring ball, the Nittany Lions are working to install the offense of new coordinator Andy Kotelnicki so that the unit can hit the ground running during the limited field time allotted in March and April. This weekend, quarterback Drew Allar provided an update on the offense’s progress so far and how he expects arduous tasks now to pay dividends this fall.

Drew Allar: Transition to Andy Kotelnicki is going “great”

Andy Kotelnicki comes to Happy Valley with many expectations, touted as one of the best offensive coordinators in college football last season. Among the most explosive offenses nationally last fall, Kotelnicki is tasked with providing a pop to the Nittany Lions’ offense both on the ground and through the air.

But Kotelnicki’s creative play style comes across as a departure from how the Penn State offense looked under Mike Yurcich the last three seasons. While not everything will be thrown out, success in 2024 will be found by merging the strengths of Kotelnicki’s system with what the Nittany Lions did well last year.

Spring practice is still several weeks away, but Penn State football has already started the task of charting out the offense’s identity for this fall. Speaking to reporters this weekend, quarterback Drew Allar expressed that significant progress has been made so far.

“Yeah, we’ve been really productive,” Allar said at the team’s THON Explorers Program Saturday. “Obviously, the offensive staff has been meeting a ton, just going through what we’re going to call stuff, what we’re going deem that we’re going to keep from last year, what we’re going to expand on, what we’re going to change the rules of. So, those meetings have been great. He’s [Andy Kotelnicki] been great at asking all of the quarterbacks’ opinions on things, quizzing us when he gets the chance to quiz us.”

Penn State looking to simple things now for success later

Struggling to find big plays in 2023, one of the main challenges for Penn State football this year will be explosivity. According to Drew Allar, Andy Kotelnicki aims to accomplish this by keeping things simple on the offensive side of the ball.

“I love being around Coach K,” he said. “He brings great energy to our offensive unit. And I think he just allows us to be ourselves and play to our strengths and play with freedom. But he’s also going to allow us to play fast by eliminating variables. One of his big things is eliminating variables for us. He doesn’t want us to think; he wants us to just go out and play and react. I think he’s done a great job with that already.”

For Allar and the rest of the Nittany Lions, the transition means more work in the meeting room this time of year. But the rising junior quarterback explained that the unit is bought into the belief that extra effort now will pay dividends during the season.

“For me personally offensively, it’s a lot more learning on the front end, but it allows us to do a lot more things at the end of the day,” Allar said. “So it’s going to be a lot of investment now and throughout spring ball, just learning everything that we’re calling it; what we’re calling everything and all the different tags that we can get into. But I think it’s going to allow us to do a lot more different things when we get into fall camp and into the season, which will be really good for us.”

We will get our first glimpse at the new Penn State offense at the annual Blue-White Game on April 13.

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