Marcus Allen won Rose Bowls. He won a college national championship at USC. He won the Super Bowl. He made a very difficult and unforgiving position — running back — look very easy, with his smooth and graceful running style. Allen was a fluid and resourceful athlete, but no one plays running back as long or as well as he did without being a very tough human being an a first-rate competitor. Marcus Allen made USC better. He made the Raiders better. He made his teams better.
USC prepares for another Heisman Trophy victory on Saturday, with Caleb Williams being fully expected to lift the stiff-arm trophy at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York. There is no better week to profile each of USC’s seven Heisman winners.
We continue our series with Marcus Allen, the 1981 winner who followed Charles White (1979) by two years. Reggie Bush, in 2005, became USC’s most recent running back to win the award, but Allen won the Heisman at a time when Student Body Right was firmly entrenched as a part of the Trojans’ football identity. He was the last great running back John Robinson had. In several ways, he marked the end of an era at USC.
Let’s look at some of his carer highlights: