The Denicos Allen file
Hometown: Hamilton
Birthday: Aug. 9, 1990
School: Michigan State University
Major: Sociology
Class: Redshirt junior
Size: 5-foot-11, 225 pounds
Position: Strongside (Sam) linebacker
Jersey: No. 28
Career statistics: 55 solo tackles, 46 assists, 11 sacks, 19.5 tackles for loss, 1 fumble recovery in two seasons
2011 honors: Named second-team All-Big Ten Conference by the media, honorable mention by the coaches … named to the Yahoo! Sports All-Big Ten second team and the CollegeFootballNews.com All-Sophomore first team … recipient of Michigan State's Tommy Love Award on defense (most improved player)
This is his world now, and it is good. Life can be complicated or simple. Denicos Allen will take simple.
He’s working toward a degree in the classroom. He’s playing football in the Big Ten Conference. He’s surrounded by people who care about him.
Michigan State University is a long way from Hamilton’s Second Ward, where Allen grew up. He faced more than a few challenges as a youth. He simply kept going, and a man emerged on the other side.
Now one of college football’s best linebackers and a player that might have an NFL future, Allen remembers leaving Hamilton and going to a foreign place nearly 300 miles away. There were things and people that he missed. But he knew it was time to go.
“I’d never really been away from my hometown,” Allen said. “I was kind of glad to be away from home. I didn’t know anybody, but coming to a new place, as long as I had football, I was good. Once you’re on the football team, everybody’s your friend. And that’s how it started.”
On the national stage
Allen is a redshirt junior at Michigan State and about to begin his second season as a starting outside linebacker.
Two years ago, he was an impact player on special teams. He was a blitzing animal last season, collecting 18.5 tackles for loss.
This year, he is on three preseason watch lists: the Bednarik Award (nation’s top defensive player), the Butkus Award (nation’s top linebacker) and the Lombardi Award (lineman or linebacker of the year).
“He’s a football player. He’s got a knack for everything,” Spartans defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi said. “I just know a spring ago, the guy made a bunch of plays in the spring game. You come out to Spartan Stadium for the spring game and it’s like, ‘Whoa, we’ve got a player.’ ”
Chris Wells isn’t surprised. He was the defensive coordinator at Hamilton High School when Allen was dominating Big Blue opponents.
Wells said he’s seen very few kids play the game with blind aggressiveness. Allen, a 2009 HHS graduate, is one of them.
“He’s just incredibly reckless … in a good way,” said Wells, now the head coach at Madison. “I’m talking about a guy that will sacrifice his own body, that has no regard for his own physical being. Somebody whose whole intent is to inflict pain on the guys with the ball.
“He’s crazy aggressive, and he’s got God-given talent,” he continued. “But what made him the real deal was that he developed an appetite for hard work. He wasn’t content with just being a really good player. He wanted to be the best. He was always going the hardest in practice, and you don’t always see that with really talented guys. When your best player is also working the hardest, that charges a team up.”
The 5-foot-11, 225-pound Allen said the national watch lists are “cool,” but not really part of his daily mind-set. Michigan State has become a national power under Mark Dantonio. The defense is very good and returns eight starters this season.
“I’m super excited,” Allen said. “I know what we’re capable of doing. I’m just excited to see what kind of plays we’re going to make this year.”
All three starting linebackers are back for the Spartans. Senior Chris Norman (6-1, 233) and junior Max Bullough (6-3, 252) are the others.
Bullough, who hails from Traverse City, Mich., said Allen’s game starts with emotion.
“Me and him always get very excited before the games get going,” Bullough said. “Not only that, he’s very explosive. He might not be the biggest player out there, but he’s a lot faster than me, I can tell you that. He has the ability to take over a game at any time.”
The size issue comes up often when people talk about Allen. College football is a big man’s game in many ways. Allen is rock solid, but he isn’t very tall.
Of course, he has been doing pretty well against bigger people for a long time. Just ask Mike Lathan Sr.
The fourth-grade star
Allen didn’t always play football. He played in the Little Blue program as a first-grader and didn’t like it all that much. He chose not to continue.
By the time he reached fourth grade, Allen still wasn’t playing. But that was about to change.
Lathan knew the family and was coaching a New Miami sixth-grade team. DeAndre Allen was a sixth-grader, and Lathan wanted the Allen brothers to play for him.
“He came to my house and told my mom we were coming to practice with him,” Denicos recalled. “I wasn’t doing nothing but playing video games at the time, so I figured I’d give it another shot. So I just went.”
“His mother didn’t want them on two separate teams,” Lathan said. “So I said, ‘OK, Nicos, you’re playing for me. I’ll take you back and forth from practice. I got you handled from there.’ ”
Allen held his own playing against kids two years older than him. He didn’t say a lot. He just played.
“He didn’t shy away from anything,” Lathan said. “His dad was a phenomenal athlete. These kids were just built to play football. It wasn’t like you had to worry about them getting hurt if they got hit.”
Denicos played with the sixth-grade team for three years. Lathan was the coach for two of them.
“When he was in the fourth grade, we went to Florida for a championship game,” Lathan said. “He saw those big guys we were playing against, and he was a little nervous. But we won, and he made a game-saving tackle. That’s probably the first time I really saw him smile. It was like, ‘Man, this guy is playing with these sixth-graders. This guy is going somewhere.’
“He was just a beautiful kid, real quiet, a hard-nosed ballplayer,” he continued. “He’s one of those kids that’s enjoyable to coach. He doesn’t backtalk you. He’s not confrontational. You see this big, muscle-bound guy that could probably crush you, and he’s just the most mannerly, nicest guy you’d ever meet.”
Big Blue’s big man
Allen was a three-year starting linebacker and an All-Ohio player at Hamilton. Ironically, he wanted to be a running back when he got to the varsity.
“I explained to him that linebacker’s just as exciting and that it could be a future position in college,” Wells said. “You look at some of the great linebackers, they’re not all tall. Basically a linebacker is a running back on defense. You have to have an instinct for where the hole is, and when that back makes that cut, you have to make that same cut and meet him there.
“You can’t coach instincts like that at linebacker,” he added. “That vision, you either have it or you don’t. Denicos has it.”
Wells was an undersized linebacker at Middletown and a Division III All-American at Thomas More College. He and Allen hit it off immediately. They are kindred spirits on the gridiron, guys with similar mentalities and backgrounds.
“Denicos is a clone of Wellsy,” said Jim Place, who coached Wells at MHS and Allen at Hamilton. “I love Denicos. There are no superlatives I can use to describe him. He is a self-made man. He’s as driven as they come.”
Allen had a number of college scholarship options, but ultimately chose Michigan State over Wisconsin, Cincinnati and Illinois. He said Dantonio, who coached at UC before heading to East Lansing, played a big role in his decision.
“I saw what Coach D was doing in this program, and they were more about character,” Allen said. “Coach Place and Coach D were real close, and they kind of preached the same message. I know my high school coach was a great coach, so I wanted to come play for another great coach.”
Wells actually drove Allen to Michigan State three times, twice for visits and once when practice began. They talked a lot about choosing a program with good people.
“My advice to him was to look at these places and try to get a feel for these guys as people,” Wells said. “You have to realize you’re going to spend a lot of time with them, and you should go with somebody that actually cares about his players. Once you get away from home, that’s all you’ve got. If they’re just trying to get a win out of you, what kind of life is that?
“Denicos is a guy that responds well to somebody who cares about him and respects him,” he continued. “That’s what he had in high school, and I think that’s what he’s got now.”
Dantonio said his opinion of Allen hasn’t changed through the years.
“He’s the same guy I saw on high school film,” Dantonio said. “He plays a hundred miles an hour. He’s very physical, can run very well, and benches 400-some pounds. He’s still a relatively young player. Now his leadership will start to take effect.”
Starting from scratch
When he arrived at Michigan State, the plan was for Allen to be a strong safety. Conventional wisdom said his size would be a detriment at linebacker.
Allen wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but he gave it a shot. He never really clicked in the secondary and hurt his knee early in that first camp, leading to a redshirt season.
“I didn’t come in expecting to get redshirted,” Allen admitted. “I figured they would move me back to linebacker, which they did. I like to hit. I like to be close to the action.”
He rose up as a redshirt freshman. It’s not easy to get on the field in the Big Ten at a young age, but Allen got a chance to play some linebacker and excelled on special teams.
“I think I was on all the special teams,” said Allen, who blocked a punt to help the Spartans rally past Purdue. “I wanted every chance I could get to make a play.”
“Denicos has always been able to run down on kickoff and create disasters,” said Mike Tressel, who coaches Michigan State’s special teams and linebackers. “You don’t have to worry about him being undersized. He can get in the mix anywhere.”
Allen became a defensive force last season. His blitzing took the Big Ten by storm. At Ohio State, he registered a sack by literally jumping over a blocker and landing on quarterback Joe Bauserman. The video became an Internet hit.
“Definitely the most exciting play I’ve ever had,” Allen said.
He continued to play on special teams last year and will be on the punt team this year, according to Tressel. “We call punt the most important play in football,” he said.
Tressel said Allen’s return to linebacker has allowed him to flourish.
“It was us getting him in the right spot and sort of ignoring what the experts would say about, ‘Well, this kid’s 5-foot-11, he can’t play linebacker in the Big Ten,’ ” Tressel said. “No, no, no, no. He can play linebacker anywhere. So we’ve cut him loose a little bit, and as his attention to detail continues to grow, hopefully he’s just get better and better.”
“Denicos just knows how to use his body,” Narduzzi said. “He’s got that leverage, and he’s quick and he’s tough. He was a wrestler in high school, so he knows how to weasel through. He slides and dips and rips around the edge sometimes, and the linemen are trying to push down on his shoulders and can’t get low enough.”
Tressel has a wrestling background, and Allen was a state runner-up as a Hamilton senior. At one point, they decided to do a little grappling.
“I think I surprised him a little bit,” Tressel said. “I weigh a buck-70 and he weighs 230, and I think he thought it was going to be a cakewalk. But once I tired down a little bit, it got ugly in the other direction.
“That’s a strong kid right there,” he added. “I stayed away. I was taking outside single leg shots and not trying to get tied up with him. I don’t care if you’re a 170-pound coach or a 300-pound offensive lineman, when he puts his hands in and shocks you, it’s going to snap you. But he’s smart enough that he’s not going to hurt his coach either.”
Promising road ahead
Allen is eagerly preparing for the 2012 season. Michigan State, the defending Big Ten Legends Division champion, opens at home against Boise State on Aug. 31.
Allen would love to play pro ball, and Tressel believes he has that kind of potential. Yet neither wants to focus on that possibility right now.
“You can never be too good at any aspect of the game,” Allen said. “I feel like I need to improve on everything I did good last year. I want to help this defense become the No. 1 defense in the nation.”
Allen is majoring in sociology. He’s unsure of his career path after football, but said, “I see a lot of potential in the kids at home, kids that came from where I came from. I want to do anything I can to help those kids out. I want to open up a sports camp or some type of business that benefits the less-fortunate children around my area.”
Place, who makes a point to see Allen play once a year, is sure that his former player will succeed in whatever he does.
“The very quality that makes him a great football player is going to make him a great leader in the business world,” said Place, now the head coach at Withrow. “He’s going to be a CEO someday. I tell my team about him all the time. I think they get tired of Denicos Allen stories.”
Allen just turned 22 this week. He’s a young man now, ready to take on whatever.
So many kids leave home for college and come back quickly, unable to deal with the distance or the new situation. But that’s not Denicos Allen. He can’t think of anything negative about his time at Michigan State.
“Nothing at all,” Allen said. “Every single day up here has been a great experience.”
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