ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg spoke with multiple college football coaches following the draft. The Big Ten coaches Rittenberg spoke with were pretty lukewarm on Allar as a prospect. However, they did note that Allar went through multiple system changes while at Penn State that make his evaluation difficult.

“Hopefully [Pittsburgh] will be a coaching staff that can maximize what he’s good at,” a Big Ten coach said. “I’m not really sure that was the case [at Penn State].”

Confidence was high surrounding Allar heading into the 2025 college football season, especially after Penn State made the CFP semifinals the season before. Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan for the Nittany Lions in 2025.

Allar suffered a season-ending ankle injury after a slow start to the season. It did not take long for Penn State to fire head coach James Franklin as a result.

Pittsburgh has historically been an incredibly stable franchise. They are often playoff contenders and had the same head coach in Mike Tomlin for nearly two decades.

But the Steelers are entering a new era under head coach Mike McCarthy. His first big challenge will be creating a system in which Allar can thrive and potentially become a starting quarterback.

Allar will start the 2026 offseason program behind veteran Mason Rudolph and second-year quarterback Will Howard.

It will be fascinating to see what Allar can accomplish during training camp and the preseason with the Steelers.