All-American Game a Trip of a Lifetime for Austin Allen

Next year at Arkansas Austin Allen is going to be used to national television audiences. Last weekend at the Semper Fi All-American game in Carson, California, he wasn’t. You wouldn’t be able to tell though. Allen started for the East team and led them to victory. It was all televised on the NFL Network.

“You’d be on the sidelines,” said Allen. “You’d see cameras coming up to you in your face and you didn’t know if you were on TV or not so you didn’t know what to do. It was just fun all around because not many kids have gotten to experience playing on TV before.”

And he played with the best recruits in the whole country, kids committed to national title contenders like Alabama, Notre Dame and all the other big time programs.

“It was a lot faster of a game speed and overall athleticism,” said Allen. “There were defensive linemen running 4.6 (40-yard dash) there going to Alabama. It was a lot to learn, I guess, playing against those guys.”

Allen held his own in the game though. The competition in the 7A West conference was good, but this was a whole different monster. If Allen wants to improve his game for college, this was an excellent wake up call.

“I have to learn on making quicker decisions with the ball and just speeding up the game a little bit to get to that level of speed.”

New Arkansas coach Bret Bielema has been keeping in close contact. He called Allen twice on Saturday and talks to him every week.

“I’m sure he’s going to expect improvement and I know I need to improve to play at that level,” said Allen. “I’ll improve and get better for it.”

Allen graduates in five months. Then it’s a hop skip and a jump up to the Arkansas campus across the street.

“Being around the team, practicing with them all, I’ve been dreaming about it since I was a little kid,” he said. “I’m finally living out that dream and I’m going to really cherish that moment.”