Former Morgan County High School QB Bill Allen will have his number (#11) officially retired prior to the start of the 2007 Sorghum Bowl game between host Morgan County and visiting Fairview Eagles this upcoming Friday night.

 

Bill Allen is regarded as the best football player to ever play for the Cougars in the history of the school. At the time, Allen broke state records in four categories, including total yards passing (6,440) for a career by the end of the 1983 season.

 

Allen was ranked the #1 QB in the South, an Adidas All-American and National High School All-American Honorable Mention as a senior.

 

He committed to Kentucky after being heavily recruited by many big schools including Louisville, Duke, Vanderbilt, Marshall, Ohio State, etc. and was also recruited by BYU, Notre Dame, and U.C.L.A.

 

Allen led the Cougars to an 8-2 record, and surprisingly missing the state playoffs with a 21-14 loss to rival Prestonsburg in the 1983 Sorghum Bowl which also had the largest crowd to ever witness a home game at Morgan County. Morgan County blanked Greenup County to start their 1983 campaign (21-0), beat Raceland easily, along with Rowan County and Breathitt County. The Cougars also beat Belfry and Lawrence County that season. 8 wins has only happened twice at Morgan County (1983) under the direction of head Coach Bruce Herdman and then recently in 2004 the Cougars were 8-4 under the direction of head Coach Randy Wood.

 

Bill Allen and family will be at the game Friday night for the ceremony and all Cougar fans and football fans in general are urged to attend the Annual Sorghum Bowl game this Friday night.

This is great news! I certainly remember him. Allen was one of the best passing QB's that I have ever seen in this area bar none. Would be hard to say or imagine what kind of numbers that he would have had in some of today's spread offenses:scared:.

Great honor for a great football player, Kudos to the people at MCHS for doing this. :ylsuper:

 

I hope that you have a great turnout and bring home a Win!! Go Cougars!

How well did he do at UK?

Just wondering Nets.......Will John Reed be present?

John was an assistant at Raceland when I was in school and went to Morgan Co. to take the head coaching job there. Good coach and even better person. :thumb:

Bill was a wonderful QB and MCHS is doing the right thing in honoring him, we were fortunate enough to beat them our Senior year but, it had nothing to do with Bill's performance

Bill played at Kentucky for four years. He was backup QB to Bill Ransdell and Kevin Dooley. As a Freshman, Bill got in the game vs. LSU on ESPN and drove the Cats down the field on their longest drive of the game...but it was the only one he was in but did extremely well.

 

Bill was the holder on all extra points and never botched a snap:ylsuper:

I remember Bill Allen very well. We (Belfry) lost to him at Morgan Co when he was a Senior and I have always been impressed with his ability. He was in the same mold and same era as Mike Whitaker from Leslie Co. Both of them would have had monster careers in todays offenses.

 

Congratulations to Mr Allen, and kudos to MCHS for honoring him. It is a well deserved honor and one in which I'm sure he will treasure.