Kenneth Arthur Allen (born July 8, 1994) is an
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
punter who is currently a free agent. He was the starting placekicker and punter for the
2015
File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...
and
2016 Michigan Wolverines football team
The 2016 Michigan Wolverines football team represented the University of Michigan in the sport of college football during the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Wolverines played in the East Division of the Big Ten Conference and play ...
s.
Early years
Allen was born in 1994.
His father is from Korea and played college soccer at Oakland University in Rochester, MI.
[ He attended Fenton High School in ]Fenton, Michigan
Fenton is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan that lies mostly in Genesee County, with small portions in neighboring Oakland County and Livingston County. It is part of the Flint, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in turn, is included i ...
. As a high school kicker, he was ranked as the No. 2 punter and No. 13 placekicker in the country by Rivals.com
Rivals.com is a network of websites that focus mainly on college football and basketball recruiting in the United States. The network was started in 1998 and employs more than 300 personnel.
History
Rivals.com was founded in 1998 by Jim Heckma ...
.
University of Michigan
Despite receiving scholarship offers from multiple schools, Allen chose to enroll at the University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
in 2012 as a preferred walk-on. His Mother did her Undergraduate and Graduate degrees at University of Michigan. Due to his hard work and support from his sister, He was given a scholarship in 2015.Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
, Allen kicked a field goal for the first points of the Jim Harbaugh
James Joseph Harbaugh (; born December 23, 1963) is an American football coach and former quarterback, who is the current and 20th head football coach of the Michigan Wolverines. He played college football at Michigan from 1983 to 1986. He play ...
era. His kickoff against Utah, where his sister Hannah now lives, was also the first field goal made by an African-American kicker in Big Ten history. Allen converted eight of ten field goal attempts and 25 of 25 points after touchdown (PAT) attempts. He also secured touchbacks on 22 of 46 kickoffs.[ On September 10, 2016, he scored a career-high 14 points in a game on three field goals and five PATs. Allen was named the Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week for the week ending October 31, 2016. Allen made field goals from 23, 23 and 45-yards on October 29, setting a new season-long, and also hit all three PAT tries to total 12 of Michigan's 32 points in its nine-point win over ]Michigan State
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...
for the Paul Bunyan Trophy
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
. Allen also kicked off six times with three touchback
In American football, a touchback is a ruling which is made and signaled by an official when the ball becomes dead on or behind a team's own goal line (i.e., in their end zone) and the opposing team gave the ball the momentum, or impetus, to trav ...
s and a 64.2-yard average and punted three times for 122 yards, landing one inside the 20-yard line. During the 2016 season, Allen was second in the league with a 42.6-yard average, punting 46 times for 1,961 yards with 20 punts inside the opposition's 20-yard line and 14 punts of 50 yards or better. He has converted his last 12 field goal attempts, the third-longest streak in school history, and has converted 16-of-20 field goals this season. Following the 2016 season, Allen was named to the All-Big Ten special teams second-team, by both the coaches and media.
Professional career
Allen signed with the Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
as an undrafted free agent on May 5, 2017. He was waived on September 1, 2017, during final roster cutdowns.
Allen signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Tim Hortons Fiel ...
on October 9, 2017.
References
External links
Michigan Wolverines bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Kenny
1994 births
Living people
People from Fenton, Michigan
Sportspeople from Metro Detroit
Players of American football from Michigan
American football placekickers
American football punters
Michigan Wolverines football players
Baltimore Ravens players
Hamilton Tiger-Cats players