STATE COLLEGE — Penn State’s 38-10 blowout of SMU in the first round of the College Football Playoff was valuable for plenty of reasons, but one that may be overlooked is the fact that freshman quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer made his collegiate debut as Drew Allar’s newly minted backup.
Grunkemeyer, assuming the No. 2 role last week in wake of Beau Pribula’s untimely transfer, entered the game with more than 10 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and the first-team offense still surrounding him.
For a top-10 quarterback in the 2024 recruiting class, a four-star and a highly praised player inside the program, Grunkemeyer’s first taste of college football wasn’t the prettiest.
Penn State committed a false start before his first snap, he handed off to Nicholas Singleton for little gain and then threw an interception on his first career passing attempt.
He had a run-pass option look and clearly liked the leverage top receiver Harrison Wallace III had on SMU’s Brandon Crossley, but Grunkemeyer let the ball sail a bit high. Crossley corralled the pass off of Wallace’s fingertips, and SMU immediately drove the short field for its only touchdown.
“I think he handled the moment fine. There was no adaptation of what was being called,” offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki said after the win. “He was prepared all week to go into the game, like we would expect.”
Head coach James Franklin was visibly upset and yelling with quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien immediately after the interception, as shown by TNT’s broadcast. Perhaps Franklin would have preferred Grunkemeyer handed the ball off in that situation.
“I think any time that you’re the backup quarterback or the third-string quarterback, you need to prepare like you’re the starter, and I think he does that,” Kotelnicki said. “I thought he went in and handled it well. You probably want that throw to be a little more on the body or handed off, but it happens.”
Grunkemeyer’s second drive was significantly more successful. After a pair of short runs, he noticed zone defense from SMU and took the open out route quickly to Wallace, who picked up a few extra yards to move the chains on third down. Penn State burned two more minutes off the clock before punting, essentially killing any minuscule possibility of a Mustangs comeback.
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The Lewis Center, Ohio, native finished 1 for 2 for 9 yards and the interception in his Penn State debut, but he could be needed much more through the CFP as the primary backup.
“You go back out there, you get it out of the way, and you respond to adversity. It’s a little bit about what I said before. It is football, this is playoff football, so it ain’t going to go perfect the whole game,” Kotelnicki said. “You’re going to have to respond when things aren’t going well. What he did in that to allow us to go out there and chew some more time up off the clock, it kind of really exemplifies kind of how today went, I thought.”