{"id":70507,"date":"2024-12-17T14:30:46","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T19:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=70507"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:33:10","slug":"penn-states-pribula-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/17\/penn-states-pribula-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State’s Pribula Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn State is preparing to play in Round One of the College Football Playoff (CFP).\u00a0 The last thing head coach James Franklin and Penn State needed was a distraction off the field.\u00a0 However, that is what they are faced with heading into the White Out matchup with SMU<\/a> on Saturday.\u00a0 Penn State\u2019s Pribula problem will have an impact on this game.\u00a0 It will also impact future rounds of the CFP (if applicable), and the team heading into next season.<\/p>\n

Penn State\u2019s backup quarterback, Beau Pribula<\/a>, announced on Sunday that he has entered the transfer portal.\u00a0 While the Beau Show is not a huge surprise given the presence of Drew Allar<\/a>, perhaps the most impactful part of this is that Pribula will not take part in the CFP.\u00a0\u00a0In his Monday press conference, Franklin addressed the Pribula situation and took the opportunity to pitch reform to the college football schedule.\u00a0 Franklin said \u201cWe talked last week. \u00a0(Pribula) had no intentions of leaving. But we have problems in college football, and I can give you my word. Beau Pribula did not want to leave our program, and he did not want to leave our program until the end of the season.\u201d\u00a0 The problems Franklin alluded to are the overlapping schedules, whereby if Pribula waited to enter the portal, quality quarterback spots were already going to be taken.<\/p>\n

Penn State’s Pribula Problem: Impact on the CFP Game<\/h2>\n

Losing the backup quarterback who has attempted less than 10% of the team\u2019s passes should not be a huge deal.\u00a0 Given Allar\u2019s announcement that he will be returning to Penn State for his senior season, Pribula\u2019s decision seems even more logical.\u00a0 However, heading into the round-one matchup with SMU, the loss of Beau Pribula is indeed important.<\/p>\n

Pribula has served as a change-of-pace quarterback in coordinator Andy Kotelnicki\u2019s offense.\u00a0 In addition to throwing the ball, he is a threat in the rushing attack.\u00a0 On the season, Pribula is fourth on the team in rushing attempts (38), in rushing yards (242), and tied for fourth in rushing touchdowns (four).\u00a0 Throwing the ball, he has completed 26 of 35 passes for 275 yards with five touchdowns and one interception.\u00a0 The highlight of Pribula’s season was his performance in the win against Wisconsin<\/a>.\u00a0 Taking off for an injured Allar, Pribula completed 11 of 13 passes for 98 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions.\u00a0 He also rushed six times for 28 yards.<\/p>\n

Penn State is losing Pribula’s change-of-pace production at quarterback.\u00a0 There will also be an impact on some of the creativity that Kotelnicki brings to the offense.\u00a0 However, there is another risk that this brings forward.\u00a0 Penn State\u2019s backup quarterback is now a freshman who has not taken any snaps in a game yet.<\/p>\n

Ethan Grunkemeyer, Please Step Forward<\/h3>\n

A true freshman, Ethan Grunkemeyer<\/a> now moves into the backup quarterback spot.\u00a0 Grunkemeyer stands a 6\u2019 2\u201d, 200 pounds, and has a strong arm.\u00a0 He profiles as more of a pocket passer, in contrast to Pribula.\u00a0 Grunkemeyer has not taken any snaps in a regular season game this season.\u00a0 The only time he has been under center in a \u201cgame\u201d situation was Penn State\u2019s Blue-White Game this year.<\/p>\n

Given the inexperience of Grunkemeyer, it will be interesting to watch the ramifications of the Penn State game plan against SMU.\u00a0 It is even more imperative to keep Allar healthy.\u00a0 A big part of his game this season has been a more aggressive style.\u00a0 This has included taking more chances and running the ball.\u00a0 Allar\u2019s inability to win the biggest games of his career so far, with perhaps more apprehension due to a lack of a backup quarterback, is an additional risk for Penn State this weekend.<\/p>\n

Grunkemeyer may be the future of the Penn State quarterback position.\u00a0 However, the team and its fans don\u2019t necessarily want to see what they have in him yet.\u00a0 Given Pribula\u2019s decision to leave immediately though, they may not have a choice.<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penn State is preparing to play in Round One of the College Football Playoff (CFP).\u00a0 The last thing head coach James Franklin and Penn State needed was a distraction off the field.\u00a0 However, that is what they are faced with heading into the White Out matchup with SMU on Saturday.\u00a0 Penn State\u2019s Pribula problem will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5172,"featured_media":70525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10906,2,35610],"tags":[34494,32842,32817,7983,837,309,7524],"class_list":["post-70507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-cfb","category-featured","category-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-2024-college-football-playoff","tag-2024-transfer-portal","tag-andy-kotelnicki","tag-big-ten-football","tag-james-franklin","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-penn-state-quarterbacks"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70526,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70507\/revisions\/70526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}