Miracle Moments in USC Trojans Football History by Dan Weber

Author:Dan Weber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683582472
Publisher: Sports Publishing
Published: 2018-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

By the time he was a senior, Marcus Allen broke the NCAA’s 2000-yard barrier as the first college back to pass that mark in his Heisman Trophy-winning season.

The resilient Allen would carry the ball as many as 46 times a game. And he just kept rolling, getting his 200-yard-plus games to 8. He was not always taking people head on, although as his fullback blocking days showed, he could.

“Clearly we were a little bit in awe of what he was doing,” Robinson is quoted as saying in Bisheff and Schrader’s Fight On!. “He was such a great competitor. He was absolutely the best mental competitor I’d ever seen. He was smart and always knew how to get extra stuff out of any situation he was in.”

By the time he was finished, Marcus had set or tied 16 NCAA records and had gained 2,342 yards—when no one else had ever reached 2,000. He led the NCAA in yards per game (212.5) and total yards per game (232.6) as well as scoring average (12.5 points a game).

He also led USC in receiving in 1980 and 1981 with a total of sixty-four catches. And he earned 441 first-place Heisman votes to runner-up Herschel Walker’s 152 (totaling 1,797 points to Walker’s 1,199), third-place Jim McMahon’s 91, and Dan Marino’s 16.

The honors would just be starting. Marcus earned the Maxwell and Walter Camp Awards as college football’s top player in 1981.

He would be named to the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame after his 16-year NFL career and MVP Super Bowl selection.

“He was the greatest player I have ever seen,” Robinson said.

Going into his senior season, Marcus knew he had a chance to be in that discussion.

“I wasn’t confident, I was cocky,” Marcus said, “because of the work I did.”

As Washington State Coach Jim Walden said of Marcus, as quoted in Bisheff and Schrader’s Fight On!: “He played Superman. I swear I saw him changing clothes in the phone booth. I even saw him fly over the stadium.”

For a guy who could do it all with a football, maybe Marcus could, in fact, fly. After all, that wouldn’t be much crazier than some of the other things he did.

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