Kentucky’s Allen wins his third national top defensive player award of week
Josh Allen might be a bit jet-lagged.
The Kentucky senior linebacker’s hand might hurt from all of the handshaking.
And trophy lifting.
Allen picked up his third national defensive player of the year honor late Sunday night on the West Coast when he was presented with the Lott Impact Trophy at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach, Calif.
Allen was one of four finalists for the Lott Impact Trophy handed out for college football’s defensive player of the year along with Washington linebacker Ben Burr-Kirven, Clemson defensive lineman Christian Wilkins and Duke linebacker Ben Humphreys.
The award named for Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott takes into account several things in selecting its winner, including integrity, maturity, performance, academics, community and tenacity.
Previous winners of the award have included Jabrill Peppers of Michigan, Manti Te’o of Notre Dame, Luke Kuechly of Boston College, J.J. Watt of Wisconsin and Glenn Dorsey of LSU.
The senior linebacker and consensus Defensive Player of the Year in the Southeastern Conference has racked up several awards in the past week, including the Chuck Bednarik Award and the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, both also given to the nation’s top defensive player.
Allen also was a semifinalist for the Walter Camp Player of the Year award.
The 6-foot-5, 260-pound linebacker, has been difficult for opponents to contain this season with an SEC-best 14 quarterback sacks, 18.5 tackles for loss and five forced fumbles to go with his team-high 84 total tackles. He broke the UK single-season and career sacks record (28.5) this season.
It has been nice to see Allen rewarded for making the decision to come back for his senior season, Coach Mark Stoops said last week. The senior announced Friday that he’s planning to play in the upcoming Citrus Bowl.
“Just talking to a couple pro scouts today and they’re using him as a reference to other juniors across the country because — I don’t want to put a dollar figure on it — but an absolutely significant the difference between him coming out a year ago and coming out now,” Stoops said.
“And he’s a great example for players also with the way once he decided, he never looked back. … He went to work and went through his process of getting ready to play and preparing himself for the season and for each game. That’s why he is in those awards shows and why he is representative of some of the greatest players in college football this year because they go about things the right way.”
The additional lift of Allen winning all of these awards has been great for the program as a whole, for which Stoops is grateful.
“To win the awards that he is winning, that exposure helps you, helps the program,” the head coach said. “But more personally it’s gratifying to share that with him and see what he’s gone through.
“He’s been very gracious and very humble and he’s handled himself very well.”
Citrus Bowl
No. 14 Kentucky vs. No. 12 Penn State
When: 1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 1
Where: Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.
TV: ABC-36
This story was originally published December 9, 2018 at 11:20 PM.