Penn State quarterback Drew Allar spoke to the media on Wednesday about what he sees from Pete Golding’s Ole Miss defense going into the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Penn State quarterback Drew Allar has been exactly what his team needed him to be this season, a field general who simply puts the ball where it needs to go more often than not and taking care of the football.
Allar has only thrown one interception all season long, framed against his 23 touchdown passes. As a matter of fact, Penn State has a team has only turned the ball over six times through 12 games. That said, Allar knows that he’ll have to have yet another clean game from himself against a veteran Ole Miss defense consisting of guys like Deantre Prince, John Saunders, Daijahn Anthony, Trey Washington and Zamari Walton.
“They’ve got two really good corners. Safeties are really rangy too. Their corners are impressive. They have a good ability to fall off on routes, pretty savvy, and they’ve got both pretty good length. With length usually comes tightness, but that’s not the case with these corners,” Allar said on Wednesday. “They’ve got really good length and speed, so they’re able to track different routes and play the ball really well in the air. It’s going to be very important just to make sure I see in front of wherever I’m throwing and don’t let those guys get shots on the receiver or make a play on the ball… They use their bigger frame well and jam the receivers pretty well. Yeah, the corners are really impressive for sure.”
Ole Miss’ defense as a whole has been among the biggest reasons why they’re on the verge of having the best season in the program’s history, in terms of wins. Although most of the numbers don’t stack up to that of Penn State, the Rebels have held the rope late in a handful of games such as Tulane, LSU’s final drive, Arkansas the following week and other instances in the back half of the schedule. Ole Miss’ defense is giving up 22 points per game and were among the nation’s sack leaders going into the final three games of the regular season, having 34 going into this Peach Bowl matchup and holding opponents underneath 375 total yards on average.
“We’ve been saying it all bowl prep that (Ole Miss) is a very multiple team, play a lot of even and odd fronts. So we’re going to have to be tight on communication up front, whether it’s run blocking schemes or pass protection,” Allar said.
Ole Miss will have its chance to win 11 games for the first time in program history on Saturday, Dec. 30. Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. CT inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium and can be seen on ESPN or listened to on the Ole Miss Radio Network. Inside the Rebels will provide wall-to-wall coverage throughout bowl week and the game itself, providing notes, facts, observations and more. Inside the Rebels will also continue to provide in-depth offseason coverage from team-based matters, to recruiting and the transfer portal.