It is often said in the voyage of life, \u201chome is always with you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Penn State quarterback Drew Allar, it\u2019s no different.
Allar discussed during 2025 Big Ten Media Days at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas yesterday what being an Ohioan means to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just growing up in the Midwest, but more specifically, Northeast Ohio, specifically where it\u2019s a big football town region in general, it\u2019s definitely shaped my love (of football),\u201d Allar said. \u201cSo it means a lot to me. And then obviously having my dad, who played football in high school and was fortunate enough to play in college as well, really helped me.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Allar\u2019s family deeply rooted in football, the NFL was always a part of his Sundays. Allar\u2019s loyalty isn\u2019t far from where he was rooted. Ultimately, Allar wanted to focus on the task in front of him of potentially winning a national championship and declared his intention of returning to Penn State. Allar was asked if he would embrace being selected by his boyhood team.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cJust to have the opportunity to play in the NFL in general, no matter the organization, would be an honor and a blessing,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing able to go back home to Ohio, and playing my home state is definitely a blessing,\u201d Allar said. \u201cThey (Ohio State)\u00a0 have a great environment, great program, great team, great players and great coaches. So when that opportunity comes, I\u2019ll be looking forward to it, just for the opportunity to go back home and play them, because they\u2019re a great team, and they accomplished what every team in America wanted to accomplish last year. So you know, when the opportunity does come, I\u2019ll be excited for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is often said in the voyage of life, \u201chome is always with you.\u201d\u00a0 For Penn State quarterback…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[47673,47674,86,85,54,2337,1800,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-232750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-2025-big-ten-media-days","9":"tag-2025-penn-state-football","10":"tag-browns","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-browns","13":"tag-clevelandbrowns","14":"tag-drew-allar","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114909154260358256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cI grew up going to Cleveland Browns<\/a> games every Sunday, every home game from the time I was like, six or seven years old,\u201d Allar said.\u201dThe only time, the first time I missed a Cleveland Browns home game was my freshman year at Penn State. I mean, my dad still has the tickets in his name.\u201d
Allar\u2019s draft stock was rising at the end of last season. The gap between the end of the Big Ten Championship against Oregon<\/a> to the College Football Playoff First Round against SMU<\/a> was shortened by a deadline to declare for the 2025 NFL Draft\u00a0 or return to Penn State.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Allar\u2019s boyhood team selected two quarterbacks in the 2025 NFL Draft: Allar\u2019s opponent in the 2024 Big Ten Championship and former Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel went in the third round, and the organization took a flier on the polarizing former Colorado<\/a> quarterback Shedeur Sanders.<\/a>
With the Browns handcuffed by the salary cap due to quarterback DeShaun Watson\u2019s<\/a> health issues along with defensive end Myles Garrett<\/a> and defensive back Denzel Ward,<\/a> the three consume nearly 30% of the Browns\u2019 cap space.<\/p>\n
While Allar indicated throughout his near half hour with the media that the primary focus is Penn State\u2019s first opponent Nevada on August 30 in Beaver Stadium, questions still were asked about playing in Ohio \u2013 notably Penn State\u2019s November 1 encounter with Ohio State, which might be the most anticipated game not only in the Big Ten but also in the nation.
Allar put it into perspective what it means to play in the state of Ohio against the state\u2019s No. 1 team with his family and friends present.<\/p>\n