‘Nobody’s bigger than the S’: LeQuint Allen delivers a defining performance versus UNLV

Allen delivered for Syracuse when it mattered most. It shouldn’t come as a surprise.

When the Syracuse Orange faced a goal to go situation in Las Vegas, UNLV linebacker Jackson Woodard thought he had shut down LeQuint Allen before he powered his way in for a game-winning touchdown Friday night.

So did the fans…. and yes, even the commentators.

“Allen is stopped by Woodard! Still going! NO! He gets through! Allen gets through!

Allen finished with 129 yards on offense and a career-best four total touchdowns in the Orange’s rollercoaster 44-41 overtime win against the No. 25 UNLV Rebels. That included 19 carries for 71 yards and a season-high nine catches for 58 yards.

In hindsight, Syracuse needed every single one of those scores, but Allen’s biggest play didn’t result in a score, but it gave the Orange a chance to earn the win.

For Allen, setting the standard means everything to him. Syracuse fans saw that first hand, either at Allegiant Stadium or while watching from afar.

“Actions on and off the field. Just being a leader and just leading by example and putting all on the line for my teammates,” Allen said after the game. I would die out there for my teammates if I could.”

Allen left Friday’s game midway through due to some sort of lower leg injury. He briefly exited, then returned just as UNLV began mounting its comeback after the Orange went up 31-21 in the third quarter. Despite that, Allen said he wanted to put it all on the line for his team.

“He just has a little more gas than most people. We know if we’re getting to overtime, we wanted to give the ball to LeQuint,” Syracuse coach Fran Brown said on Monday. LeQuint… he’s really a tough kid, he does a really good job. He’s been doing that his entire life, so we just wanted to get LeQuint the ball.”

The journey for Allen from his first days with the Orange is fascinating. He first memorably burst onto the scene during the 2022 Pinstripe Bowl. With former All-ACC running back Sean Tucker heading to the NFL Draft, Allen emerged immediately versus the Minnesota Gophers with 15 carries for 94 yards and 11 catches for another 60.

For the fanbase, there was hope. Syracuse had its future productive running back.

Then, 2023 saw a whole bunch of chaos emerge, and not much of it was really Allen’s fault.

He was initially suspended for that year’s summer and fall semesters due to his alleged involvement in a fight on Syracuse University’s South Campus in December 2022. That news didn’t become public until June 2023, when fans learned Allen filed a lawsuit against SU for its decision. Weeks later that summer, he returned to the program.

On the field, a fast 4-0 start for the Orange in 2023 quickly fell flat. Syracuse lost seven of its last nine games, starting quarterback Garrett Shrader played without a shoulder over half the season, Oronde Gadsden missed most of the year and the Orange fired former coach Dino Babers.

Even after all that, all of those difficult moments never changed who Allen is.

“He exemplifies DART (Detail, Accountability, Relentlessness and Toughness), but the T in that is for him,” Brown said. “He’s very tough, he just works his butt off. He’s the passion of our program and if I could just take one person have every single other kid on our football team act and be just who he is, it would be LeQuint Allen.”

Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images

Allen’s growth has been both on and off the field. During games, coach Brown and quarterback Kyle McCord have unlocked him as a receiving threat out of the backfield. He’s still running similarly per carry now as he did in 2023 (4.7 YPC in 2023, 4.9 in 2024), but his 29 catches, 226 receiving yards and three receiving TDs are all career-high rates. For context, he had 36 catches for 197 yards and one TD in all of 2023.

Offensively, it’s what’s made the Orange pretty unstoppable this year on offense. Syracuse’s pass-happy offense is working to mostly perfection, but part of that is Allen can still effectively run the ball enough and be equally as much of a threat receiving a pass.

However, that’s only half the picture. The other half is the perspective us fans rarely see: the leadership, saying the right things and affirming that with action, culture-setting and genuine care for the program and school.

The last point in that list should matter more than anything if you’d like to know what made Allen’s performance versus UNLV. It wasn’t just the counting stats or the game-winning touchdown fans should remember. It’s the broken tackles that turned into positive yards. The plays that won’t show up in the highlight reel all the time. The willingness to put everything on the line in the moment.

As Kevin noted over the weekend, it was a big moment for Allen and the program.

“At the end of the day, if I can run I could jog, I still want to go out there for my team because nobody’s bigger than the S,” Allen said.