The “backup quarterback dilemma”. Here’s the thing—this weird spot players find themselves in, a backup quarterback in this case, raises many problems. Let’s use James Franklin and the Lions as an example. Come the Wisconsin game, Drew Allar goes out because of a left leg injury during a sack on the last drive of the 2nd quarter. Now, who saves the day for James Franklin? Beau Pribula. Comes in, gets a touchdown pass for the Lions, and Franklin takes the easy win at 28-13. For the rest of the 2024 conquest, Pribula does well enough to show that he truly is the new starter in the making, but then drops the bombshell: “Penn State QB Beau Pribula to hit the transfer portal,” and right before the playoffs. Yikes.

This news split the internet in half. On one end, you had people like Joel Klatt calling the portal “a flawed system,” and you even had Franklin lobbying that, “We’ve got problems in college football.” On the other end, some people just didn’t care because CFB had turned into an NIL playground. However, now that the dust has settled, Franklin has an admission to make – and yes, it’s about Beau. “Beau Pribula was our backup QB, and Beau’s dream school was to come to Penn State… Beau did not want to leave, but as a QB, there’s only so many spots, and schools that he was interested in were filling up, and he had to choose,” James Franklin pointed out on On3.

Now, why did we bring up the dilemma scenario earlier? See, some people went on to speculate that Beau left for the portal because Allar is coming back. Now, although this might sound quite far-fetched, don’t you think it makes sense? You have this backup who is at his dream school, just waiting to be the next starter.

But then, your current starter decides to stick around for another year. This, paired with the fact that the portal closes on December 28th, was basically life slapping Beau back to reality. No starting job = No blank checks or big opportunities. You’re stuck in limbo.

Ultimately, you have to choose the lesser evil, and Beau moved forward with the NCAA’s old-school traditions. However, this entire scenario that Franklin had to face brings up another possibility: Beau declares for transfer, and Allar decides to go to the NFL. What on earth do you know?

At least a Top-5 pick, but still skipping?

“Beau, now goes into the transfer portal… He’s leaving because Drew is coming back. Drew goes on fire during the playoff run and now turns into not only a first-round draft choice… But now a Top 5 pick, and he felt the pressure to make an announcement, and now all of a sudden we are in a position where we lost both of them. That was a realistic concern for me and Drew,” Franklin confessed. Although Penn State managed to retain its QB, this scenario raises a lot of questions.

You see, Allar was a blast to watch. Starting at the Oregon game, despite having a much weaker offense compared to the Ducks, Allar kept the boat afloat with 3 massive touchdown passes. The Lions lost, but Allar was impressive.

Fast forward to SMU and Boise, and the Lions went ballistic. While there is a debate on where SMU or Broncos should’ve been in the playoffs or not, we can still agree that they earned their spot. However, unfortunately for them, Allar and Penn State were there to snap them back to reality.

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Now, some analysts tried their best to push for the NFL narrative, but Allar took the risk and decided that he would manage another year at Pennsylvania despite Lions losing their heartbeat, aka Tyler Warren to the draft.

Will this whole thing work out for Franklin? Only time will tell.