Allen’s Vision in Senior Return Becoming Reality
Josh Allen had unfinished business, so he bypassed the NFL Draft to return to Kentucky.
Central Michigan surely wishes he had taken care of that business and left so they didn’t have to deal with him.
The senior linebacker was a terror on Saturday, anchoring a stalwart season-opening effort by the Wildcat defense.
“Josh played great,” Kash Daniel said. “It’s awesome just to be out there on the field with him and watching him do his stuff. The things that he does on the football field, you don’t see it a lot.”
As the UK offense worked to find its feet early – unsurprisingly, considering none of its quarterbacks had played a Division-I snap – the defense kept the ship as steady as possible. In spite of facing short fields after four first-half turnovers, Kentucky allowed just 20 points – seven coming on a fumble-return touchdown by the Chippewas.
“The score didn’t go our way in the beginning, so we knew as a defense we were going to have to step up,” Allen said. “After we gave up that first touchdown, we knew we weren’t going to give up any more. I feel like we did pretty well with that. I told Terry (Wilson) and Gunnar (Hoak) that we had their backs and we weren’t going to give up any more points. We were going to get three-and-outs and we did that.”
In the second half, as Benny Snell Jr., A.J. Rose and the UK ground game took over, the defense pitched a shutout en route to a 35-20 victory as the Cats scored 21 unanswered points to close the game. For the game, UK allowed just 255 yards, its fewest in a season opener in seven years.
“I really liked the way we played as a unit today,” head coach Mark Stoops said. “So it’s what I expect of them and to improve from here.”
No one had more to do with that than Allen.
Allen had a career-high 10 tackles against Central Michigan, with three coming for loss and the first on star running back Jonathan Ward setting an authoritative tone for the afternoon. He had a team-best six solo tackles, with one of them coming as he increased his career sack total to 15.5. Not even a holding penalty committed by the lineman trying to block him could stop him from getting to Chippewa quarterback Tony Poljan on the play.
“I came back for a reason,” Allen said. “I came back to do things like this. I didn’t come back just to come back. I came back to get better. Better for myself and better for my team and that’s what I’m here to do week in and week out.”
Though Allen was happy to have started with this kind of performance, he’s hardly content. In fact, as he evaluated his play, he couldn’t even make it through a complete answer without delivering some self-critique.
“It was a great start,” Allen sad. “Could have had another sack, but I didn’t finish. I gotta work on that. Could have played better, but I feel like it was a really good start.”
That sort of attitude comes as no surprise to Allen’s teammates, least of all Daniel. The junior linebacker, who had a team-best 11 tackles as he stepped into a starting role for the first time, has noticed a new level of focus in Allen.
“You can tell that everything he does he’s absolutely just dialed in,” Daniel said. “There’s no joking around of any kind. Let’s not get it twisted: Josh likes to have fun, but he knows the difference between when to have fun and when to hone in and lock stuff down. It’s not just Josh. A lot of guys on our team do that. If we continue to do that and keep guys building on about that, you’ll see Josh’s attitude out of everybody.”
Allen is demanding more of himself and more of his team. He plans to deliver.
“I just knew I had to make more plays,” Allen said. “I feel like I got better. I feel like I prepared for this. Now I have to keep it week in and week out because now they know what I can do and I know what I can do physically and mentally and I know what my team can do. We’re just going to have to keep going.”
