Penn State QB Drew Allar

Helping Others While Preparing For The Upcoming Season

Quarterback Drew Allar has earned his fair share of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals since arriving at Penn State, and recently he took the chance to use his status to give back to the local community.

Allar teamed up with Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and the company’s Mission Tiger project, which donated $30,000 to Pennsylvania middle schools to help fund youth sports. Allar was on hand to announce the donation at the Giant on Benner Pike, where he signed autographs for fans, played catch with kids and posed for photos.

The Penn State quarterback said he wanted to help with the cause because of how much sports meant to him when he was growing up.

“I want to be able to give back to every kid that I possibly can just because of the opportunities and things that were brought to me throughout sports and all of the life lessons that I learned throughout playing sports,” Allar said. “I think every kid should just have the opportunity and be able to have the resources to go out and enjoy the sports that they love to play.”

Allar said being able to give back is one of the great things about NIL, and hopes other players and programs continue doing more of the work they’ve done through NIL to help their local communities — especially because it can help encourage kids to do the same when they get older.

And while NIL has played a role in his offseason, Allar said it’s only after he puts the proper work into school and football to help him and the Nittany Lions achieve their goals this season.

“It’s definitely a balance,” he said. “But for me personally, my two most important things are school and football and then NIL comes third for me personally. Just because obviously I have goals at Penn State and we have goals as a team that we want to achieve. So we don’t want to be distracted in any way.”

Allar said the team intends to keep those goals in-house whether they’re individual or team-related — but the primary focus to achieve them is to maintain his improvement on a day to day basis.

Despite keeping his aspirations for the season to himself, Allar said the work the team is putting in right now and what they’ve done to this point in the offseason gives him the confidence that when the season comes around, they’ll be where they want to be on the football field.

For him, some of that is about relationship building, especially with his primary weapons. The Nittany Lions had the same starting quarterback for almost the entirety of the last four seasons in Sean Clifford, and now the team’s receivers and tight ends will have to build a new connection with Allar.

He said those relationships are the biggest key moving forward.

“I think the biggest thing is just communicating with them no matter if it’s on the field or off the field, just spending time with them to get to know them,” Allar said. “Not always talking about football, getting to know their personal side more. Those conversations always happen in the locker room and as we’re walking out of lifts. I think our receiver room is really, really deep this year and I think we have a really strong core in there and they all pull each other up and pull each other together.”

His connections with his receivers will be important, but so will his leadership with the rest of the team. Clifford was one of the undisputed leaders of the Nittany Lions over the last few years, and now the team’s new quarterback will have to work to replace him. That level of influence won’t come right away for Allar, but it will likely have to eventually.

Until then, he’s collaborating with offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Mike Yurcich and the rest of the quarterbacks in the position group to help each other grow.

Allar is getting help from his position mates, but he’s still the runaway leader to be the team’s starter, even if Penn State head coach James Franklin has not declared it yet. That type of pressure can have an impact on a young quarterback, butAllar said it’s the same as it always was for him as he heads into the season.

Written by Jon Sauber, Yahoo! News