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This Day In Sports…September 29, 1990, 35 years ago today:
Boise State faces a coaching legend in a game at Long Beach State. At the age of 72, George Allen had come out of retirement to coach Long Beach—and would pass away at the end of the year. It had been six years since Allen had last coached in the USFL with the Arizona Wranglers. But he gained fame as an NFL mastermind, winning 119 games over 12 seasons with the L.A. Rams and Washington Redskins, reaching Super Bowl VII with the latter (and falling to the 17-0 Miami Dolphins). Allen never had a losing season in the NFL.
Allen was a master motivator, and the young and the eager Long Beach State roster responded to him. Boise State dominated much of the game but lost to LBSU on the scoreboard 21-20. The Broncos took a 17-7 lead early in the fourth quarter but were burned by a 73-yard touchdown pass on the next play from scrimmage. All four of Boise State’s losses that year were by seven points or less. The Broncos finished 10-4 and made it to the semifinals of the Division I-AA Playoffs. But they left some wins on the table.
It was a key victory for Long Beach State, as the 49ers posted a 6-5 record in Allen’s swan song, nabbing their first winning season since 1986. It would be their last. LBSU football made it through one more season before the university dropped the program. The 49ers made a return trip to Boise early in that final campaign with legendary Oakland Raiders cornerback Willie Brown as coach. The Broncos won 48-14.
Allen grew up excelling in other sports, but football was always No. 1. And after World War II, Allen found himself at Michigan, where he landed his first assistant coaching job in 1947. He was a workaholic, and he was obsessed with football, and both traits showed when he was trying to become a head coach. Allen sent out more than 850 applications, and the only two schools that replied were Morningside and Trinity College. He was hired by Morningside for a salary of $3,900 and ventured off to Sioux City, IA. After three seasons at Morningside, he moved on to a six-season stint at Whittier College in California (1951-57).
After nine years as an NFL assistant, Allen landed his first NFL head coaching job with the Rams in 1966. Despite his success and near-misses in the playoffs, he was fired by the Rams after the 1970 season—and was promptly hired by Washington. One of the Redskins biggest fans was President Richard Nixon, who once drew up a play for Allen to use in a 1971 NFL playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers. Allen obliged—the play was an end-around to Roy Jefferson. The Niners’ Cedrick Hardman tackled him for a 13-yard loss.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
