PITTSBURGH -- Gripping the ball in his hands, quarterback Drew Allar set his feet in the turf of the Pittsburgh Steelers' indoor practice facility, lightly bouncing from side to side as he shifted his weight and grounded himself.
Then the Steelers' third-round pick executed a three-step drop, took a lateral step and fired off a quick pass. Before Allar's next throw, quarterbacks coach Tom Arth paused the drill to demonstrate the cadence of the footwork, while coach Mike McCarthy added in his own pointers. With that advice top of mind, Allar resumed throwing, resetting his base each time before his dropback and pass while Arth and McCarthy observed.
Allar moved through that drill and many others Saturday morning at half speed as the coaching staff essentially uninstalled his old hardware and began rebuilding his fundamentals from the ground up.
As the only quarterback at rookie minicamp, Allar got undivided attention from Arth and significant instruction from McCarthy. And while McCarthy said his signature quarterback school works best with three quarterbacks, the individual time with Allar allowed the coaching staff to hone in on reestablishing the rookie's foundation.
"It'll be great to have all three of those guys because there's a tempo to it," McCarthy said of adding in Mason Rudolph and Will Howard. "In the quarterback room, the relationship of the quarterbacks in that room, that's important. They spend a lot of time together, so we have a lot of fundamental conversations that we need to get started.
"But I think for a rookie to get the attention that he's received since Thursday has been outstanding."
At 6-foot-5 with a wide arm span and nearly 10-inch hands, Allar possesses the raw traits McCarthy looks for in his West Coast-style quarterbacks. And as a three-year starter at Penn State with 61 career touchdowns and 7,402 career passing yards, Allar has the pedigree to be a top-tier signal-caller. But despite his measurables and a background playing premium college football, Allar's mechanics need work to make him a more consistent player.
With the Nittany Lions, he posted a 1-6 career record against AP Top 10 opponents, completing just 50.3% of pass attempts at 5.5 yards per attempt. Meanwhile, he went 25-3 against all other opponents and completed 67% of attempts at 8 yards per attempt. That's why the top priority for Allar is similar to what McCarthy focused on with Howard in the first phase of the offseason training: footwork. It's McCarthy's first step, no pun intended, in helping Allar transition to a Steelers system where he'll play more under center than at any other point in his career.
"It gives you the ability to play faster," McCarthy said of the importance of having good footwork. "Gives you the ability to transition in and out of the challenges that occur throughout quarterback play. We're teaching him different than the way he's played before. He hasn't spent a lot of time under center. He's a run-and-shoot guy in high school. He's played from 9 yards deep. So there's just a lot of newness to him, but it's just like anything. When you see the response from Friday's practice, talk about it Saturday morning and then for him to go out there and do it today, that's encouraging.
"Frankly, it's really the same types of stuff that we went through with Will four weeks ago. So these are two young guys that have a lot of football in front of him, got a lot of work to do, but gosh, I mean, they're definitely wired the right way, and they bring an excellent physical skill set."
For Allar specifically, it's not only about getting comfortable under center, but it's also about making sure his physical foundation is strong.
"Just playing with a little bit wider base and keeping my feet in the ground as much as I can and not getting on my toes as much," he said. "It's just really fundamental things that I just have to be aware of now and be conscious of. And in the drill work, obviously I want to be as accurate as I can in the drill work, but really just focusing on the footwork and getting that mental repetition down so I can feel that and then carry that over into team when it's a competing session."
While Allar's goal, of course, is to complete his passes in every period, several of his throws during one-on-ones went long as he missed the mark. But McCarthy wasn't worried about those incompletions.
"I was really focusing on footwork in general and not really caring about the result, more about caring about the process," Allar said. "And then when I get to like a 7-on-7 or team setting, obviously I want to go out and complete every ball. But in those settings, Coach McCarthy told me to not really worry about the results, worry about building that foundation for myself."
