Hanover
The former University of Florida quarterback announced his intentions to transfer to Dartmouth in late May, and there was immediate talk that the redshirt freshman would win the starting job almost by default.
The graduation of two-year starter Jack Heneghan had left the Big Green without any significant experience under center, and surely an import from the powerful Southeastern Conference would step into the first-string lineup went the thinking.
However, Allen not only hasn’t played any significant time for Dartmouth, he’s out for the season because of injury and was piloting the Big Green’s scout team before he was hurt.
The scout team is the group of backups assigned to mimic the week’s upcoming opponents’ formations and plays. You’re generally not on it if there’s a realistic chance you could see action in the next game. To have an Ivy League scout-team quarterback who was recruited by Notre Dame, Miami, Stanford and North Carolina is highly unusual, to say the least.
Although touted, Allen quickly fell behind Derek Kyler, Jared Gerbino and Jake Pallotta during preseason practices. The native of the Miami — Ft. Lauderdale area completed 1 of 2 passes for 9 yards during an opening rout of Georgetown and piloted the junior varsity offense during a scrimmage against Norwich University the next day.
Then came warmups for the Yale game. While in street clothes, Allen attempted to field a punt, but the ball landed just in front of him and bounced up, breaking and dislocating the little finger on his non-throwing hand.
“My finger was completely sideways and fractured in a couple different spots,” said Allen, who had surgery last month. “It was a freak accident. I’ve got two pins in there. I have to try and find the sliver lining.”
The former four-star recruit hopes to successfully petition to get a season of eligibility back. That would be his sixth season in college, however, so there are no guarantees.
For now, Allen and Big Green coach Buddy Teevens look at his layoff as time to decompress.
“I think it will be a blessing in disguise,” Teevens said. “He’s put great pressure on himself to come in and be ‘The Guy’ and now he’ll have the entire off-season to adjust and learn the offense by studying (video). He’s accepted what happened and moved forward.”
Allen, 6-foot-1 and 205 pounds, stands behind the offense during practice, watching his position mates, the decisions they make and the outcomes that occur. He makes mental notes of personality traits, skill sets and which players respond to which buttons being pushed.
“I try to look at this as glass-half-full,” Allen said. “I’ve caught myself thinking that this sucks, but I’m at one of the greatest colleges in the world, so things could be worse.”
Allen’s been in tougher spots, including the day he was 13 and his father, Tim, moved him from suburban youth football to what he perceived as a tougher setting with the Deerfield Beach Packer Rattlers. Jake’s new team was guided by Darron Bostic, who goes by the nickname “Coach Pimp,” according to a 2017 story by the website SEC Country.
Allen was the team’s only white player.
“It was weird walking out there. I knew no one except Coach Pimp,” Jake Allen told the site. “But I knew if I wanted to be somebody, I couldn’t keep facing these wimpy Boca Raton kids. They’re playing because their parents signed them up.”
First sign that Allen was in a different setting? His smartphone was stolen out of his sneakers on the sideline during that first Packer Rattlers practice.
Tim Allen played football briefly at Boston University. He and his wife, Leslie, held Jake back a year in eighth grade and he started high school in Boca Raton before transferring to Cardinal Gibbons in Fort Lauderdale and again to crosstown option St. Thomas Aquinas, which he led to a state title.
Jake Allen made his college choice as a high school sophomore and by June of 2016, Bleacher Report issued a video entitled “Jake Allen Has the Skills to Be the Savior in the Swamp for the Florida Gators.”
The web site 247sport.com ranked him as the country’s 10th-best pro style quarterback prospect, and he earned an invitation to the prestigious Elite 11 quarterback finals in Los Angeles.
“This is the dream we’ve been working on for years,” Tim Allen told SEC Country in advance of his son’s 2017 enrollment at Florida. “I’m excited for him to take the next step.”
Jake Allen didn’t play for Florida last fall, and he decided after spring practice that he didn’t fit into the plans of new coach Dan Mullen, who had arrived from Mississippi State.
A blogger covering West Virginia University’s football team pleaded with the Mountaineers to sign Allen, but the Dartmouth program’s various Florida connections, including Gators alumnus and associate head coach Sammy McCorkle won out.
Things haven’t gone as planned, however.
“This isn’t what I’d love to be doing,” Allen said of his current situation, his left hand encased in a green cast. “People are always looking at you, whatever you’re doing. Attention is fine, but my end goal isn’t being in the spotlight. If that was my goal, I wouldn’t have come here. I would have gone to another FBS school.”
Allen struggled almost from the start at Dartmouth and later said that because of his small hands, he had experimented with a new grip starting in the summer. Allen said he’d seen some pro quarterbacks using different finger placement and began trying the same technique.
“I don’t know why I did it,” he said on Sept. 19. “I got away from the grip I used all during high school and last year. But then I had to start thinking about other things besides throwing the ball when going through a play, and my motion broke down.”
Teevens noted that Allen’s in his fourth offense in less than two years. Allen said he’s unwilling to use that as an excuse.
“It’s on me; I haven’t done what I wanted to come in and do,” he said. “It’s definitely a humbling experience but I’m still playing football and I’m a firm believer in the Lord’s plan and dealing with what he has in store for me.”
Allen will work a short, business law internship in Jupiter, Fla., with former Dartmouth quarterback Connor Kempe during Dartmouth’s six-week break after Thanksgiving. From there, it’s on to conditioning drills and trying to move up the depth chart when spring practice begins in April.
Let’s not forget academics, either.
“That’s very different here,” Allen said with a chuckle. “There’s an emphasis on actually going to class and doing your work. You’re a student first, rather than an athlete, and that’s the biggest change. But it’s a change I wanted.
“What I’m getting here is preparing me for life, rather than having everything given to you, like where I was last year.”
Notes: Neither defensive tackle Jackson Perry nor receiver Drew Hunnicutt saw full practice repetitions this week but Teevens said he expected both to play. … Nearly every NFL team has sent a scout of some kind to Dartmouth practice this season. Among those this week was Atlanta Falcons assistant general manager Scott Pioli, who previously was the Kansas City Chiefs’ general manager and also worked for the New England Patriots. … Dartmouth’s three-bus caravan was scheduled to leave Hanover at 9 a.m. on Friday. Three players who couldn’t avoid academic conflicts were to later be driven the 300 miles in a car. … Stu Cohen, a Yale football fan who began attending Bulldogs games when he was 14, will watch his team for the 300th time today, when Yale greets Brown.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.