Penn State and its fans have heard about this new offense for eight months.
After coach James Franklinhired Andy Kotelnicki away from Kansas Dec. 1, people got excited and stayed excited through the end of August.
What Penn State did against West Virginia Week 1 made them even more excited.
The team’s first possession ended with a fumble but that ended up being one of the only negatives of the Kotelnicki debut. By the end of the day, Penn State had out up 457 total yards and 34 points in a 34-12 win. For WR Harrison Wallace III, this is only the beginning.
“Ya’ll ain’t seen nothing,” Wallace said with a smile after the game. “That wasn’t even a third of what we have.”
Wallace was perhaps the No. 1 highlight for Penn State’s offense in a day filled with them.
As with Kotelnicki’s scheme, a lot of people had been hyping up Wallace all offseason as the team’s new top receiver who could be the true No. 1 Penn State has lacked since Jahan Dotson moved onto the NFL after the 2021 season.
If Saturday was any indication, Wallace will make life miserable for Big Ten secondaries.
He ended the day with 117 yards and two touchdowns— of 50 and 18 yards, respectively— on five catches, all in the first half. The 118 yards were a career-high, and the two touchdowns have already matched his best from any season. Wallace would have had more scores in 2022 but missed five games due to injury.
Drew Allar➡️Harrison Wallace
In the 1st half…
Drew Allar: 8/13, 199 passing yards, 3 passing touchdowns.
Harrison Wallace: 5 receptions, 117 yards, 2 touchdowns. #CollegeFootball #CollegeGameDay #PennState #PennStateFootball pic.twitter.com/lsBeurcvPK
— NFL Junction (@NFLjunction) August 31, 2024
Franklin has talked up Wallace multiple times to reporters over the winter.
Wallace said his coach believing in him makes a big difference.
“I think just him being so positive really just affected me in a positive way,” he said. “It just gave me more confidence to go out there and just compete at a high level.”
One of the biggest things that got Penn State fans excited about Kotelnicki’s hiring was how explosive his offense was at Kansas.
Per Penn State’s athletic website, in Kotelnicki’s three seasons at Kansas, his offense ranked 12th in the country in 20+ yard plays 15th in 30+ yard plays and 11th in 40+ yard plays.
By comparison, Penn State ranked 109th nationally in completions of 20+ yards last year, the lowest of the Franklin era.
Penn State’s four touchdowns were of 50, 18, 40 and 19 yards.
That’s explosive, and that wasn’t lost on Wallace.
“Oh, for sure,” he’s said. “I’ll say being explosive is one of the most important statistics in the game, so it’s just something that the receivers, it’s what we’re going to have to do consistently to go where we want to go this year.”
One of Penn State’s goals offensively is to create chaos.
”For Kotelnicki,” Max Olson of The Athletic wrote in Oct. 2022 when Kotelnicki was still at Kansas, “the name of the game is distortion.”
That distortion was on display Saturday.
“Really the tempos,” QB Drew Allar said. “Like, the shifts and motions. It’s hard for defenses to get set when we’re getting up to their line in our unbalanced formation when we’re snapping the ball right away. Like, that’s hard because obviously all defenses are going to have some imbalanced checks, but if we snap the ball before they’re even in that check, it’s going to be hard for them all day.”
“The personnel groupings will cause stress because you don’t… like, we could bring three tight ends in the game, but it could be like a five-wide set like it was today. So they don’t really know what to expect. So it’s going to cause a lot of communication on their end. The more we can make them communicate and the faster that we can get the play call in and snap it is going to be more of an advantage for the offense.”
Allar ended the day with just 17 pass attempts on 11 completions, but those 11 completions amounted to 216 yards and three touchdowns.
That’s 19.6 yards per completion.
By comparison, Allar averaged 10.1 yards per completion last season.
He also showed off his running skills, gaining 44 yards on six carries (7.3 yards per carry) and even converted a 3rd and 7 and 3rd and 8 with his legs on the same drive in the second half.
Franklin jokingly referred to him as “Lamar Allar” in his postgame presser but improving his running was something Allar took seriously over the offseason.
“It’s really just more of making the defense respect me as a runner,” he said. “That was one of my goals coming into fall camp, talking to Danny (O’Brien), Coach K and Coach Franklin. I’ve been intentional about it, and I’m going to show it every week when I have the opportunity.
Overall, Allar wants to “be the guy that sets the tone offensively,” but he feels Penn State has other players capable of doing that as well.
“So does Nick Dawkins, Nick Singletonand Kaytron Allen and obviously the receiving core. I want to show emotion and passion for the game but I’m never going to dip down. I’m going to be steady the whole time, but I’m going to definitely celebrate when things do go our way. Because, I’m mean, this is what we’ve worked for since January to come out here, have a fun time and be explosive as an offense, so we’re going to celebrate it as a team.”
If it’s true that Penn State’s new offense is only scratching the surface, look out, everybody else.
“There’s more to come,” Singleton said, “for real, man.”
