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Terry Allen iss the new Head Coach of the Missouri State Football Bears. Mike Smith has the story:
From missouristatebears.com
Terry Allen, who cut his coaching teeth and enjoyed his greatest coaching success in the Gateway Football Conference, will return to one of the nation's most potent Division I-AA leagues as the new head coach of the Missouri State University Bears. Allen's appointment was announced Tuesday afternoon at a news conference in Springfield by Bill Rowe, Missouri State Director of Athletics. Missouri State Board of Governors president Mike Franks and Missouri State president Dr. Michael Nietzel also made remarks at the news conference. Allen has been given a five-year contract at Missouri State.
Allen, who followed more than 20 years of success as a player and coach at the University of Northern Iowa with five seasons as head coach at the University of Kansas, comes to Missouri State after four seasons as associate head coach, tight ends coach and special teams coordinator at Iowa State University. Allen's appointment at Missouri State was approved Tuesday morning by the University's Board of Governors and he will begin his new duties Jan. 1. Allen will be on the sidelines for Iowa State for the last time on Dec. 31 when the Cyclones play TCU in the ev1.net Houston Bowl at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. Allen becomes the 19th head coach in the 95-year history of Missouri State football and he succeeds Randy Ball whose contract will not renewed following the 2005 season.
"Terry Allen is a perfect fit for Missouri State football," commented Rowe. "He enjoyed huge success in our league when he was at Northern Iowa and we're excited about asking him to guide our program."
"I'm thrilled about the opportunity to become coach of the Missouri State Bears," said Allen. "I developed a great amount of respect and admiration for this program and this university when I was at Northern Iowa. The potential in this program, this school and this community is awesome. Lynn and I have visited this community and have long thought this would be a great place to live and raise a family. We are excited about moving here. We've got one more item of business in our position at Iowa State on Dec. 31 and we'll hit the ground running at Missouri State on New Year's Day."
The tradition-rich Northern Iowa grid program has won games at over a 60 percent rate for more than 100 years and Allen's eight years as the Panthers' head coach from 1989 to 1996 have him among the all-time leaders even by the lofty standards the Panther program has had. Working along the same coaching lines as legendary mentors Stan Sheriff and Darrell Mudra, Allen has the highest winning percentage of any UNI coach who's guided the Panthers for more than one season.
At the time Allen left UNI after the 1996 season, his 75-26 record made him the winningest coach in Gateway Conference history and gave him a .743 winning percentage. His Panther teams won or shared Gateway titles in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 and competed in the NCAA I-AA playoffs each of his last seven seasons at UNI. The Panthers advanced to the national semifinals in 1992 and 1996 and had a 6-7 playoff record under Allen. He was the Gateway Coach of the Year five times in his last six seasons at UNI and was named Kodak Regional Coach of the Year in 1992 and 1996.
Allen's UNI teams did not lose a home game in Gateway Conference play in his eight years as head coach. He lost two games in those eight seasons to Illinois State and the other league schools only beat him one time each.
Allen enjoyed yet another distinction at UNI. At the time he left the Panther program in 1996, he was the only individual who had been involved in every one of the first 134 football games the Panthers played in the UNI-Dome, a facility which opened in 1976 when Allen was a sophomore with the Panthers.
A native of Iowa City, Iowa, Allen was a quarterback at West High School there. He was a backup signal-caller for the Panthers as a freshman in 1975 and was the starting UNI quarterback the next three seasons as the Panthers of head coach Stan Sheriff played their first three seasons in the 16,300-seat UNI-Dome.
After graduating from UNI with a degree in physical education in 1979, Allen joined Sheriff's staff as a graduate assistant coach. Allen moved up to a full-time position the next year. He stayed on the staff when Sheriff retired and handed the Panther reins over to Darrell Mudra in 1983 and Allen stayed on again when Mudra retired and Earle Bruce became head coach in 1988. During his decade as a UNI assistant, Allen had responsibility at various times for the Panther quarterbacks, offensive backs and wide receivers. Allen's teams posted a 20-33 record in his five seasons as head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks. Included in his tenure there were impressive wins over nationally-ranked Colorado, a win over Oklahoma and three victories over the Jayhawks' arch-rival, the Missouri Tigers. He guided Kansas to the 500th all-time win in school history in a victory over Missouri in 1997. Allen opened his last KU season with a 24-10 win over Missouri State in 2001.
Moving to Iowa State as associate head coach in 2002, Allen renewed a lengthy relationship with Cyclone head coach Dan McCarney. McCarney and Allen grew up together in Iowa City and McCarney was Allen's track coach at Iowa City West.
In Allen's four seasons at Iowa State under McCarney, the Cyclones have gone to two bowl games with the third bowl game in that tenure coming up Dec. 31 in Houston. McCarney was Big 12 Coach of the Year for a 2004 season. With Allen coaching several special teams, ISU went through the entire 2004 season without having a kick blocked. In addition, freshman place-kicker Bret Culbertson made 44 of 48 field goal and PAT tries under Allen's guidance the last two seasons. Tight ends Walter Nickel and Ben Barkema have combined to catch 33 passes for 519 yards and four touchdowns this season.
In his career at Northern Iowa and Kansas, Allen tutored nine players who are on NFL rosters in 2004, including Arizona Cardinal all-pro quarterback Kurt Warner of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Warner was the 1999 and 2001 NFL Offensive Player of the Year as a St. Louis Ram. Former all-pro linebacker Bryce Paup of Scranton, Iowa, the 1995 NFL Defensive Player of the Year with the Buffalo Bills, also played for Allen.
Allen's KU and UNI tenures finished with a 95-59 overall record, including a 63-4 record when those teams were ahead at halftime. Allen's teams were 31-15 in games decided by seven points or fewer.
The 1992 UNI team, led by wide receiver and kick returner Kenny Shedd, were 12-2 and received the school's first-ever No. 1 national ranking, a position they held for five consecutive weeks. Starting early in the 1992 season, UNI was ranked nationally for 87 consecutive weeks. Shedd would go on to an NFL career with the New York Jets, Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins. The 1996 team was also 12-2 with on-field leadership from wide receiver and kick returner Dedric Ward. Ward is in his eighth NFL season, playing for the Dallas Cowboys.
Allen's Iowa roots run deep. His father, Robert Allen, was a football player and a national champion swimmer at the University of Iowa. The elder Allen served as an assistant football coach at Iowa and was head men's swim coach for 16 years.
Allen and his wife Lynn have three children; Angela, Chase and Alex.