Loss to ULM followed by facing Alabama was rough start to Allen’s time

After a redshirt year, Brandon Allen wasn’t expecting to see the field that much in 2012 and all that changed on a night in Little Rock a lot of Arkansas fans would love to forget.

When Tyler Wilson was knocked out of the game against Louisiana-Monroe, it was time for the redshirt freshman to step in and he didn’t have a lot of quick success in a 34-31 overtime loss.

It had an effect he told Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) on ESPN Arkansas on Friday morning.

“I tried to not (affect him),” he said. “It’s tough to play against Alabama and going into the ULM game and not getting that win. It made me quickly realize that whatever I was doing wasn’t good enough.”

Many point to that ULM as the point when everything started to turn around in a 37-62 slide although Allen did manage to have a couple of successful years — 7-6 in 2014 and 8-5 in 2015, which are the best marks over the last eight seasons.

It does include a win over Texas in the Texas Bowl, a legendary win over Ole Miss where his two-point conversion in overtime won the game … but also a haunting loss to Mississippi State in 2015.

The two teams had traded big runs and after Dak Prescott led the Bulldogs to a score, Allen got his turn to try and set up a winning drive that ultimately ended with a blocked chip-shot field goal at the end.

“We just happened to get down there so quick that we didn’t want Dak to get the ball back,” he said. “Obviously they’d been scoring all day.”

After passing in a two-minute offense, the Hogs went into a run game setting up the field goal attempt.

“It was the smart play,” Allen said. “It was in there so close and we got them to burn all their timeouts. We were trying to set up a field goal and not let Dak have the ball with timeouts and time on the clock.

“In terms of time management it was a smart play. We did the right thing setting it up but weren’t able to get it done at the end.”

It’s one many Razorback fans still cringe over.

During the ongoing health crisis, Allen is playing a little golf at Fayetteville Country Club and looking to catch on with an NFL team after his contract ended with Denver.