Urban Meyer reveals how Ohio State should prepare for Drew Allar, Beau Pribula

More than halfway through the college football season, the structure of practice begins to change. Urban Meyer broke it down, as it relates to Ohio State’s preparation for Penn State in Happy Valley this week.

“You have about a two-hour practice,” he said on this week’s episode of “The Triple Option” podcast. “You cut down as the season progresses, probably an hour 45 [minutes] I’m thinking this time of year, just to get players off their feet. Because early in the year we’d go sometimes two and a half hours.”

Meyer went on: “So you’ve got a window where you got probably 30-45 or 40 minutes of special teams. You got your warm up, you got all your individual drills, and then you go into the meat of the practice. And this time of year, it’s probably more meat of practice than the development time.”

Meyer said Ohio State would probably be preparing for the read-option component of Penn State’s offense about one-third of the “meat” of practice — that is, when Drew Allar is the starting quarterback.

But with Allar nursing an apparent left knee injury, and being described as a game-time decision for Saturday’s top-four showdown between the Big Ten powers, backup Beau Pribula, even more of a dual threat, takes center stage.

With the injury to Allar in mind, Meyer hypothesized that defending the read-option will become 100% of that “meat” portion of Ohio State’s practice.

“Because there’s a chance they could get Pribula, a full dose of him,” Meyer said. “And he’s really good player. .. He’s a nice athlete. He looks very comfortable with his reads. I’ve noticed him all year. I think [offensive coordinator Andy] Kotelnicki is very comfortable — that’s his kind of quarterback. That’s what he had at Kansas, a guy that can run, a guy who can distribute the ball.”

Meyer added: “I don’t think they have the skill, Penn State I’m speaking of, to drop back and beat Ohio State. Those two freaks in the backfield, Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton, and then obviously the tight end, the incredible player, Tyler Warren, those are the three guys that can beat Ohio State. And with this quarterback, that’s a pain.”

Pribula filled in for Allar and led the Nittany Lions past Wisconsin on the road last week, erasing a three-point halftime deficit and completing 11-of-13 passes for 98 yards and a touchdown, not to mention the 28 yards he added on the ground in a 28-13 win.

Pribula and Allar are part of the same Penn State class. Pribula has backed up Allar the last two years, at times providing the offense a change of pace with his athleticism.

During that two-season span, the redshirt sophomore has completed 29-of-44 passes (65.9%) while throwing for 349 yards, seven touchdowns and only one interception. He’s also piled up 77 rushing attempts, 462 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns in his career.

“When you see the way he was running the ball, you have to account for him,” former Alabama and NFL running back Mark Ingram said on “The Triple Option” podcast.

“And when you have to account for the quarterback running the football and rushing for first downs, guess what that does? It opens up the entirety of the offense. The running backs love it. Now there’s an extra person out of the box. If he carries out a fake, somebody’s chasing him, one or two people. Now, guess who’s eating healthy? It’s the running backs. And when you have to worry about Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen and now Beau Pribula running the ball, guess what that does? It opens up guys on the outside and Tyler Warren. I think what he did is he opened up this entire offense.”

Already, the Nittany Lions have been much more creative, and effective, offensively this year with Kotelnicki running the show under longtime Penn State head coach James Franklin.

The Nittany Lions are more explosive. Granted this puts them at only 10th of 18 teams in the Big Ten, but they have 33 plays of 20-plus yards from scrimmage this season. In other words, they are averaging 4.71 of those plays per game this year, an improvement from the 3.62 per game they averaged in 2023.

What’s more, Penn State has seven plays of at least 40 yards from scrimmage this season when it had eight such gains all last season. Three of those seven this season have come on the ground, where Singleton and Allen star. That running back tandem has combined for 992 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns this year.

Kotelnicki has spiced up the Nittany Lions’ offense with multiple formations and shifts, and he’s leaned into the quarterback run game, even with Allar.

A dual threat himself, Allar has carried the ball 34 times for 129 yards and a trio of touchdowns this year, in addition to throwing for 1,640 yards while recording 12 touchdown passes and four interceptions during the Nittany Lions’ 7-0 start.

But with Allar’s injury, it’s yet to be seen how mobile he is this week.

“A three-quarter speed Drew Allar becomes a liability,” Meyer said. “That’s not good against a team like Ohio State with that pass rush and the defensive players they have. So you got some decisions. You got to have some really good conversations because at the end of the day, you got to find a way to move the ball on offense.

“Everybody’s focused on how to move the football. A three-quarter speed Drew Allar or less, even maybe a little bit more to me is, you don’t have the skill at Penn State on the outside to go beat the Buckeyes. It’s got to be somehow with the really good players in the backfield, Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen.”