James Franklin is still beating the drum on Drew Allar’s ability to take checkdown throws as a young quarterback. The head coach admitted at his weekly press conference he was trying to be more measured in his responses after the drama of a week ago, but he reiterated that Allar has been fantastic in his ability to take care of the ball.

According to Franklin, every head coach is on a mission to find the QB who is willing to take what the defense gives him. No QB dreams of throwing a checkdown, so players like Allar are a rare breed.

“I was just about to answer this and I don’t want it to come off the wrong way. Again, I’m being measured because I don’t want this to sound like I’m being a smart aleck. It’s probably why I got so uncomfortable last week is you spend your whole career trying to get quarterbacks to take checkdowns,” Franklin explained. “Every QB wants to throw the corner route, or the go route or the post. Who’s throwing checkdowns in their backyard? Right? That’s why I was so uncomfortable last week because it was so foreign.”

Franklin went on to point out that Allar’s ability to take those short throws allows the offense to call the deep shots:

“Here we’ve got a kid who’s starting for the first time, and we can call those plays and he’ll take the checkdown,” said Franklin. “To me, he’s doing a really good job of keeping the main thing the main thing which is protecting the football, trying to create explosive plays when they’re there but not forcing them, managing the game…”

Franklin also noted all all Penn State needs from Allar against Ohio State is to keep refining his process. That is easy to say, but it’s tougher to pull off in a road environment like Columbus.

“I’m very pleased with him and I want Drew to understand this and I want our team to understand this. That’s what we have to do this week… Drew doesn’t need to be anything more than he’s been the previous weeks, he just needs to continue to refine his process,” Franklin said.

We’ll see how that works out against the Buckeyes, but Allar is hitting all the right buttons so far this season.