This year, Armando Allen was a leader on a leaderless offense. His inspired running, gutsy blocking and all-out play was a bright light on an otherwise shaky, off-and-on and up-and-down offense. Allen took a few years to get there, but man did he turn it on this year. He didn’t take plays off, and he ran with purpose.
Allen seemed to be a man possessed this year, picking up significant yards after contact, and turning blown up plays into gains. On the year, Allen will finish with just over 500 yards on just over 100 carries for a 4.8/carry average, and 2 TDs.
It was a great effort in his last season at Notre Dame, and it’s a shame that his season and career were cut short by injury. I am definitely hoping for a 100% recovery.
Good work, Armando. Hopefully your example will rub off on a few others in that backfield.
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SDI
good post. thanks for giving him the props he deserves.
GB
He did a nice job.
BigE
AA deserves the the props. Imagine what he could have done with run friendly offenses.
domer03
He’s a real champ… I hope he can manage to convince a team to sign him to the scout team for Sundays. He’s got enough talent that if he gets on the scout team, he might be a threat, even with a disappointing senior year – only in terms of carries, not effort.
DayBreakBoys
It is sad that AA wasn’t here when we had a better team. I always thought he had great talent and something else thats been missing from Notre Dame players for over a decade – Heart.
That being said, at least we don’t have to worry about losing this weekend. That’s a real load off.
tjak
I have appreciated his effort.
Terry
These days you can’t tell how good an ND running back is until you see him play on Sunday. With the crummy O-Lines we’ve had in recent years, they rarely have consistent 100+ yard games. Look at Ryan Grant and Julius Jones, I woulda never guessed those 2 woulda made it to the NFL. I’m sure ND running backs would look a lot better at LSU or Oregon, with wider holes and less tacklers.
Mackay Rippey
What’s up with all the very serious injuries this year? It seems more than just bad luck.
The Biscuit
tough to tell Mackay. could just be a really bad injury bug, a tough schedule, or something off in the training program. but Kelly didnt have a ton of issues at Cincy, so it’s hard to think it’s the program, unless it’s just a transitional thing (but that’d be weird too)
Erik '04
Good post. I’ll miss Armando. He played really hard last year, too. Apparently he’d run a whole bunch of stadium stairs in summer 2009 and was a lot stronger in breaking tackles last year and this year. I hope all that training isn’t what injured his hip flexor. The article I’d read suggested that he’d had this injury for quite some time.
ActionPak1
Good post, he was an awesome offensive example. Just goes to show you that everyone’s playing career will end at some time. Thankfully he will have something to fall back on.