Virginia Union’s Curtis Allen is college football’s top rusher. Can that translate to playing on Sundays?

While playing a supporting role for three seasons to the greatest running back in Virginia Union football history, Curtis Allen felt it best to stay in his lane.

This season, he finally stepped into the lead role for the Panthers.

In a game on Nov. 1 against Bluefield State (W.Va.), Allen’s team was ahead by 41 points, and he was just 16 yards shy of 300 for the game when he was told he was being pulled at the start of the fourth quarter.

However, Allen approached head coach Alvin Parker with a rare plea.

“Can I get one more series?” Allen implored.

That request was denied, but Parker offered an olive branch.

“I’ll give you one more play.”

Allen made the most of it, taking the ensuing first-down handoff and slipping an attempted ankle tackle at the line of scrimmage. Then Allen hit another gear quickly and accelerated straight through the Bluefield State defense.

Thirteen seconds later, Allen was in the end zone, the run covering 85 yards to give him a school record 369 rushing yards (and his fifth touchdown) in the 70-14 Virginia Union victory.

“He not only broke a school record that I thought would never be broken, he shattered it,” Parker said of the single-game record Virginia Union All-America running back Jada Byers had established with 324 yards in 2024. “He’s proven, in my mind, that he’s the best player in Division II football.”

Allen gets to further prove just how potent a runner he is this weekend as Virginia Union (9-2) will host California University of Pennsylvania in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs in Richmond, Virginia, on Saturday (1 p.m. ET, ESPN+).

Virginia Union, a No. 3 seed this year, is making its fourth straight playoff appearance and is one of a record five HBCU teams to reach the Division II playoffs. The others are Albany State (Ga.), Benedict College (S.C.), Johnson C. Smith (N.C.) and Kentucky State.

Allen, who at 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds, has an uncanny ability to read the gaps in opposing defenses. He’s looking to add to the gaudy numbers he’s posted this season, when he rushed for more than 100 yards in each of Virginia Union’s 11 games. So far, he has a Division II-leading 2,258 rushing yards, breaking the school record set last year by Byers (2,061).

In his only college season as the featured running back, Allen leads the nation in numerous categories, including:

• All-purpose yards: 2,321 (211 per game)

• Rushing touchdowns: 29

• Rushing yards per game: 205.3

• Scoring: 15.8 per game

• Total points scored: 174

That’s not bad for a guy who stuck it out at Virginia Union for four years, playing a secondary role in three of those seasons in an era where impatient players often flee programs at the first sign of not being featured.

“He hung in there, and with his stats he should be the first HBCU player to win the Harlan Hill Award,” Parker said of the trophy presented annually to the most valuable player in Division II football. “No one on this level this season is close to his numbers, which are not just off the charts, but ridiculously off the charts. He’s that good.”

Good enough to play on Sundays?

“Absolutely,” Parker said without hesitation about Allen’s chances of playing professionally in the NFL. “He can, and he will.”

Prince George (Va.) High School athletic director Bruce Carroll remembers the first time Allen caught his attention. At the time, Carroll, was the school’s head football coach when he and several members of his staff found time to watch an eighth-grade basketball game.

“We knew he was coming to us for football, and he wasn’t a point guard by any stretch of the imagination, but he was running the show like a coach. And you just knew he could drop 30 in a heartbeat,” Carroll said. “He had that ‘it’ factor — he was different — and I told one of our coaches, ‘You know, that kid’s got a chance to be drafted as a football player.’ “

When Allen joined the Prince George football team, he had to learn to practice patience on a Royals team led offensively by Sidney Rose, an overpowering running back who was compiling big numbers.

“He was a guy who was talented, and he wanted everything right now,” Carroll recalled of Allen. “I remember telling him to be patient, his time would come.”

That time came midway through Allen’s sophomore season when Rose, the featured back who also played middle linebacker, suffered a season-ending knee injury.

“I had to put him in the game, and I told him that it was not going to be easy,” Carroll said. “He looked at me and said, ‘Yes, coach, I got you,’ and we ended up winning a tight game that day.

“He was my No. 1 back from that day on.”

Allen’s junior season was played as the world rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic, with the normal fall season delayed to an abbreviated campaign that began in February 2021. He earned Virginia High School League (VHSL) Class 5A second-team All-State honors. As a senior, Allen was named a Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Metro second-team running back.

Despite the accolades, there was little interest from colleges.

“Part of it was with the pandemic. Kids weren’t getting recruited the way they had been in the past,” said Carroll, who moved into the athletic director’s role during Allen’s senior season. “There’s no doubt in my mind he could have gone to a Division I program and been successful. It was just a weird time.”

Virginia Union was one of just two schools — both Division II — that made Allen an offer.

“Virgina Union showed the most love, and it was close to home,” Allen said. “So it was a no-brainer.”

Parker, himself once a star running back at Virginia Union (he was twice named team MVP), remembers the day the athlete who would eventually become the greatest single-season rusher in school history caught his attention.

It was during a basketball game.

“He came down on a fast break and took off and dunked, and I was like, ‘Yeah, we’re taking him,’ ” Parker said. “People at that game were talking about his future in basketball, and I’m thinking his future is in football if he wants to be here at Virginia Union.”

It wasn’t like Virginia Union needed a running back to help immediately. When the Virginia Union coaches saw Allen at that basketball game, Byers had just completed his freshman season, when he averaged 90.1 rushing yards per game (811 for the season). Not only was Byers “that dude,” he was firmly positioned to be “that dude” for three more years.

So Allen waited his turn, opting to soak in the knowledge as he watched Byers shatter numerous school records on his way to becoming a two-time Harlan Hill Award finalist (2022 and 2024) and finishing his career as one of the best running backs in Division II history. 

“He taught me a lot — the mental part of the game, helped me with the playbook, how to read coverages and things that would make me a better player,” Allen said. “On the road we would have long conversations, and we became really good friends.”

Credit the Virginia Union staff for keeping Allen involved during Byers’ record-setting career. But in a college sports era when it’s not unusual for student-athletes to play for four or more schools, talented players don’t often have the patience to wait their turn.

“I tell our guys there’s no transfer portal in the real world. You can’t say, ‘I don’t like this job, I don’t like how things go with my family, so I’m going to transfer out,’ ” Parker said. “That’s not real life.”

The flip side in this college environment is that with NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals for some athletes reaching into the millions, transferring can be lucrative at major colleges in power conferences.

Allen admitted that he briefly put his name in the transfer portal after last season.

“Things didn’t go how they were supposed to,” Allen said. “Everything happens for a reason. This is my home, and I just wanted to stay.”

Which was a relief to his father, Curtis Allen Sr.

“Waiting your turn is sometimes hard,” his father said after Virginia Union’s final regular-season home game against Virginia State. “I told him, ‘Go back. This will be your team, and this is a time where you can show them what you got.’ ”

Allen said he is glad he heeded that advice.

“My dad told me I could go someplace else and be the man, or I might not be the man,” Allen said. “He said there’s no point leaving because this is my team now. It’s going to all work out.”

It worked out to a point where three NFL teams — the Baltimore Ravens, the Carolina Panthers and the Buffalo Bills — have traveled to Richmond to get one-on-one time with Allen.

“Hopefully I’ll get a shot. I’d like to keep playing and be in a position to take care of my family,” Allen said. “Everything I’ve been able to do this season has put me on the radar.”

The best opportunity to further amplify his talent? To keep playing deep into the Division II playoffs, where Virginia Union reached the quarterfinals last year before losing to Valdosta State (Ga.), the eventual national runner-up.

Virginia Union was ranked as high as No. 12 in the Division II national polls this season before dropping to 19th after its 45-21 loss on Nov. 15 to Johnson C. Smith in the CIAA championship game in Durham, North Carolina.

“That was a wake-up call for us,” said Allen, who rushed for 183 yards and two touchdowns against the Golden Bulls. “We’ll be ready to bounce back.”

While Allen is eager to prolong his college football career, it’s intriguing that his high school and college coaches predicted his football success after watching him play basketball.

Could it be that Allen, who averaged 19 points as a junior in high school, is as good a basketball player as they say?

“Yes, sir,” said Allen, who in 2022 was all-metro honorable mention in basketball. “I played one through five in basketball, from point guard to center.

“No doubt I’d be a better basketball player if I played more. But football gave me a better chance of making it.”

With the career football season that he’s enjoying, there’s no doubt Allen made the right choice.

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