Forged by FAU - Jared Allen
11/15/2020
Gallery: Jared Allen Playing Career
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![Camera: DCS620X
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Width: 1152
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Jared Allen’s passion for Florida Atlantic University runs deep. So much so that the former Owls’ quarterback returned to coach at his alma mater years after his playing career.
And while Allen is away from the institution now, the lessons it taught him are still aiding his professional career.
“Having that opportunity to go play for Coach [Schnellenberger] at FAU, that’s probably one of the – other than asking Christ to be my savior, asking my wife to marry me and having four kids – that’s one of the most monumental things in my life, to be honest,” Allen said.
That opportunity arose by chance. Allen, a talented but lightly-recruited prospect from Edmond, Oklahoma, didn’t have any Division I scholarship offers on National Signing Day in 2000.
Then Allen’s high school coach sent the passer’s film to a friend and assistant coach at FAU. FAU, then an upstart program led by Coach Howard Schnellenberger, already signed two quarterbacks and filled out most of its inaugural recruiting class. But it had one offer left and gave it to Allen.
“Coach Schnellenberger called, and it was a huge blessing,” said Allen, who signed with the Owls a week after National Signing Day. “No doubt about that.”
Allen’s first year of college football was different than most. The Owls played no games in 2000, instead practicing and scrimmaging for its first year of FCS competition in 2001.
Friendly competition turned into intense position battles as the 2001 season drew close. It was time for Allen, FAU’s third quarterback signee, to prove to Schnellenberger he could be the team’s QB1. Both Allen and fellow quarterback Garrett Jahn impressed, thus making Schnellenberger’s decision difficult.
Allen and Jahn’s neck-and-neck battle continued into Week 1. And since the field couldn’t separate the two, Schnellenberger decided a coin flip would determine the starter.
“I’m going to let destiny be the deciding factor,” said Schnellenberger, per Allen.
Allen called tails. And, unlike the cliché, it failed. Jahn would start the season-opener’s first quarter and Allen the second. The best of the two would start the second half.
Slippery Rock, FAU’s opponent, intercepted two of Jahn’s five passes. Allen came into the game and played turnover-free football throughout the second quarter. That prompted Schnellenberger to keep Allen in the game for the final 30 minutes.
Allen would start the remaining 2001 games and would be FAU’s field general the following three seasons.. It wasn’t a perfect inaugural season – the team went 4-6 – but the inexperienced, Allen-led Owls learned and developed plenty along the way.
“The coaches did a really good job of making us see the big picture,” Allen said, “basically building a foundation of everything.”
That foundation grew strong by the 2003 season. That’s when Allen says “it all started to click” and “come together.” FAU went 11-3 and finished one win short of the NCAA Division I-AA Championship game.
The Owls followed that impressive campaign with another in 2004, their first at the FBS level. Allen led the Owls to a 9-3 record, including an upset over overtime win in Hawaii.
“It was unmatched and very unique,” Allen said of his FAU experience. “There were a lot of hard times in there and a lot of good times. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I wouldn’t change it for anything,” added Allen, whose career 50 passing touchdowns and 8,100 yards rank second in program history. “And the people I had the opportunity to either be coached by or played with was, to me, life-changing, in a good way. But yeah, to come from Oklahoma and be the last quarterback taken – and really kind of a late find – to be the one leading them out of the tunnel every week...it was really surreal at times. But hard work pays off and that’s what I kept telling myself.”
Hard work also led Allen, who once struggled to find college scholarship offers, to a successful professional football career. He signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2005 and won the team’s rookie mini-camp MVP award that season. In 2006, Allen played in the now-defunct NFL Europe. He quarterbacked the Amsterdam Admirals to a World Bowl after replacing an injured Gibran Hamdan midseason.
Allen also credits FAU’s coaching staff for building him into an NFL-level player.
“Those guys really did help me and prepare me for the next level,” Allen said. “I’ll go back to the lessons learned in having the endurance and resilience through that whole process at FAU. It definitely played into some of the things that helped me as an undrafted free agent and NFL Europe, getting to play there.”
Allen had an opportunity to return to NFL Europe in 2007 but decided to get into medical sales instead. By day, at least. At night Allen and his brother ran the Top Gun QB Challenge for high schoolers in Oklahoma City.
The Top Gun experience gave Allen “a little itch to coach and pour into these athletes.” He soon wanted more. So, Allen called Schnellenberger and expressed his coaching desires. Schnellenberger’s response isn’t one Allen expected.
“He tried to talk me out of it for like six months,” Allen said of his talks with Schnellenberger, “and finally he was like, ‘Come be a [graduate assistant].’”
Allen took Schnellenberger’s offer and moved his family from Oklahoma to Boca Raton in 2009. The former Owls’ star served as an offensive graduate assistant that season but spent the next four as a position coach. In 2014, Allen served as FAU’s director of player personnel, then returned to the sidelines for 2015-16.
Over that eight-year stretch, Allen coached every offensive skill position group and touched countless lives.
“My goal and/or my purpose at that time was, whatever position group I was in or whatever staff I was a part of, was to pour into those young men I was getting to coach and those men I was getting to coach with,” Allen said. “Pour into them and give them my all. I was a young coach; I had a lot to learn, still do. But the perspective and the opportunity to maximize them at whatever position on the field and as a man, in life, that was my purpose. And so, the opportunity to do that at my alma mater was very special to me. I just hope and pray I was able to do that for those guys.”
Allen is no longer at FAU yet he’s still developing others. He now leads a five-person sales team at Habakkuk, an orthopedic device sales company. With Allen’s help, Habakkuk partners with various manufacturers to offer orthopedic solutions to surgeons.
“Our mission here is we help restore life within the orthopedic community,” Allen said. “And so that’s an opportunity we have here to help people.”
If it wasn’t for a connection between Allen’s high school coach and an FAU assistant, Allen may never have played college football. And through FAU football, Allen grew capable of leading and developing a team like the one he has now. That journey, Allen says, can only be described as “divine.”
“The coaching and playing experience have really helped me,” Allen said. “Whether it’s recruiting or being around different people from everywhere. That’s the opportunity football gives you: a locker room with 100 guys and they’re all from different backgrounds and different places, and we all have one common goal. And that’s where you learn teamwork. So, all those things have really shaped me to help me in my current role.”