Hey, how about some football this morning? I wrote this and we never got around to publishing it.

You probably didn’t even notice when Michigan picked up a grad transfer offensive tackle right before their 2020 football season actually began. But pick up an OT they did, and lost Jalen Mayfield to the NFL they did, and played guards at tackle this year when Mayfield and Ryan Hayes spent most of the season unavailable they did, so talk about Michigan’s very large, very old new tackle we must. Have to Yoda talk past the introduction to the oldest Michigan enrollee since the middle Wistert brother, we do not.

GURU RANKINGS

This was the third time Allen’s been recruited. The following rankings were coming out of high school in 2016, when Allen chose LSU over Alabama and Georgia.

Rivals	ESPN	247	247Comp
3*, 5.7 (#37 OT), #23 LA	4*, 88, #16 Ovr, #2 OT, #10 SE, #2 LA	4*, 90, #32 OT, #19 LA	4*, .9248, #183 Ovr, #17 OT, #11 LA
3.76	4.88	3.91	4.25

I showed those because high school ratings are often a mark of innate athleticism, size, or ability. In Allen’s case it was size—not a lot of legit 6’7.5”/310 kids running around New Orleans—and there was a huge disparity.

Thus far the skeptics won out. Allen left LSU and went to Tyler Junior College (Tyler, TX) after LSU blocked an attempted transfer to TCU. He emerged a year later ranked as a low 3-star transfer, the #74 junior college prospect and the #13 OT, and chose Louisiana Tech. Allen started there a couple of years but opted out of 2020 and grad transferred to Michigan last fall, retaining his final year of eligibility thanks to the COVID year.

[More on why it’s a good fit after THE JUMP]

SCOUTING

There isn’t much of it, since Allen wasn’t high on NFL radars playing left tackle for Louisiana Tech. His high school scouting reports are long outdated. He was an honorable mention all-Conf USA in 2019 on a team that went 10-3 and won the Independence Bowl. PFF projected Allen on their ConfUSA 3rd team before the transfer.

247 recruiting guy Brice Marich hazarded an opinion last October:

Just from looking at this pickup from my opinion, it is big figuratively and literally. At 6-foot-6, 345-pounds, Allen has tremendous size and strength, but he’s also very athletic for someone at his size as well.

Rivals got in touch with someone who covers LA Tech and got back “has a good personality”($):

“Allen is very serious about academics,” Diaz said. “I believe he graduated right before fall camp this year. Several times when Allen and I have talked, we would end up chatting about life after football. He’s definitely a guy that realizes football’s not going to last forever. Willie Allen is one of the nicest guys you’ll meet. He always makes time for you and goes out of his way to speak with you.”

But also a football player($):

“Allen is sneaky good in pass protection,” he said. “He has a great first step and is really strong with long arms, so he’s hard to get around or through on passing downs. At Louisiana Tech, one thing Allen struggled with was confidence. He was talented enough to come in during 2018 at win a starting job, but had a tough time learning the playbook which hindered how quickly he played on the practice field. If Allen can get to Ann Arbor and get the playbook down and grow confidence, he’ll have a great year for the Wolverines.”

Magnus admits he hasn’t watched any LA Tech in the last few years but remembers Allen back when Michigan offered in 2016:

I thought highly of him. But being from John Curtis, I also knew he would be a longshot to land. He was massive (now listed at 6’6″, 343 lbs.), moved pretty well, and got a ton of movement along the defensive line.

OFFERS

This seemed to come down to Michigan and Florida State, which is badly, badly in need of offensive tackles. Syracuse, Maryland, Rutgers, and Colorado State also reached out.

HIGH SCHOOL BACKGROUND

Willie Allen had to grow up early. His father died when he was six, and his life and home were washed away by Hurricane Katrina:

…by the time the 8-year-old, his mother, siblings and grandparents set out for the Superdome, eight feet of flooding stood in their path. Allen was a weak swimmer, but his older brother, Floyd, helped steer him through the debris and dead bodies.

Allen hated New Orleans. On that August day, the flooding claimed all he owned but the clothes on his back. The hurricane forced a second-grader to contend with more sorrow than most people handle in a lifetime. It forced him to watch suicides in the Superdome, to wonder if he would find Floyd after the 16-year-old was separated from family on buses to Houston. It abandoned him to a green cot in the Astrodome for weeks, made him hate Chick-fil-A since he associates boxes of the sandwiches with those days of homelessness.

The whole thing (RIP Sports Illustrated) is worth a read.

Redshirting at LSU didn’t work out—the coach who recruited him left for UTSA before the season—and Allen departed to spend a year at Tyler Junior College. He joined Louisiana Tech in 2018, then started all of 2019, completing his degree last summer. About that time Allen was dealing with COVID, and that sparked his decision to sit out the year and transfer to a place that could prepare him better for the NFL and life after football.

Allen was a basketball player before he chose to focus on football. He is by all accounts extremely, and I mean extremely dad.

STATS

No stats is OL.

FAKE 40 TIME

No 40 time is Louisiana Tech OL.

VIDEO

In lieu of the normal highlights I watched La Tech’s Dec 2019 victory over Miami (YTM), who’s been sending a parade of edge rushers to the league. While Allen’s counterpart at RT was getting abused by Gregory Rousseau, who’s going to be the first DE off the board in most mock drafts, Allen mostly drew DE Scott “Turnover Chain” Patchan and OLB Shaquille Quarterman, now of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Allen mostly won against Patchan.

Allen is #73, the left tackle:

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

Allen gives Michigan a decent floor next year. He has B+ feet, long arms, and that huge frame. I also think a year on Michigan’s campus focusing on his health could really change his game. Allen’s vagabond route through football has left him noticeably behind in technique and training.

The running parts of his game really pop. He is an excellent puller—LA Tech’s run game used a lot of T pulls—shows high awareness in the open field, and when he hits people they move.

In pass pro I see potential but here’s where his history shows. He’s learned a lot of techniques, but he hasn’t mastered any of them, save perhaps that Green Bay move where you shoot your hands up outside the shoulderpads after the defender has shown his move.

You can’t tell any of this from film, but Allen has that Jake Rudock/Grant Newsome/Kwity Paye vibe of a guy you want around the program whether he’s playing or not. To play he’ll have to beat out returning starting LT Ryan Hayes, or Karsen Barnhart, who left the door open with fair but not spectacular play in 2020 while Hayes and Jalen Mayfield missed time. Michigan also has a list of guys who were reportedly close to playing time last year, including Trente Jones and Trevor Keegan, last year’s TE/OT Joel Honigford, or RS freshman Jeff Persi, whose ceiling might be higher than all of theirs. Since none of those guys seized the job with Mayfield and Hayes out last year, I think Allen has as good a chance as any of them. It wouldn’t surprise if he’s third behind Barnhart and Hayes.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Allen will be gone before any of the 2021 signees get on the field.