Kentucky Football: Former Wildcat Josh Allen honored for rare NFL hat-trick

Former Kentucky football player Josh Allen pulled a rarely seen NFL “hat trick” on Sunday for Jacksonville with a sack, fumble recovery, and an interception in a 9-6 upset of Buffalo which earned him NFL’s AFC Defensive Player of the Week

It was Allen’s interception, the first of his career, that made him the second defensive lineman in Jaguar history to post at least one of each in a game (DE Tony Brackens is the other). In fact, it has been three years since any NFL player has done this.

What made it even crazier is the feat that came against his namesake quarterback Josh Allen of Buffalo.

Former Kentucky football star Josh Allen sack, fumble recovery, interception

Allen finished the game with a career-high eight tackles, including two tackles for loss and a sack leading his team to a stunning upset that no one saw coming given the Bills are the favorite to win this year’s Super Bowl.

He spoke after the game about his performance and reported by the Florida Times-Union.

"”I mean, got to make those plays when my number is called. For me, I visualize everything. I’m a visual person. I like to speak plays. I like to speak greatness into my head, so when it happens, I’m not surprised. I know I work my butt off. We all worked our butts off in practice to get right for this week, and I feel like I had a great week of preparation. I feel like I was in a great mindset and got to go out there and play.”"

The spread was 14.5 to start the week and reached 15.5 at game time and the Jaguar defense has not been good all year ranking nearly last in defensive categories.

But as we saw at Kentucky, Allen never quits and fights on every play of every down.

Allen becomes the 17th player in franchise history to win AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors and the first since Campbell.

The win was Jacksonville’s second of the season to go with six losses. However, through the last four weeks, Allen has rung up 28 total tackles which is second-most among all defensive linemen in the NFL during that span. On the season he now has 39 total tackles, including eight tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks, and four passes defended this season.

Over the last two weeks alone, Allen has recorded three sacks, six tackles for loss, and three quarterback hits.

Big Blue Nation remembers Allen well watching him play from 2015-2108 where he did not miss a game in his four-year career, seeing action in all 51 games with 35 starts. We watching him blossom before our eye on Kroger Field.

He finished his Kentucky career with 224 tackles, 41.0 tackles for loss,  31.5 sacks, 15 quarterback hurries, 11 forced fumbles, eight pass breakups, two fumble recoveries, one blocked kick, and one interception in his four-year career according to UK Athletics records.

He helped guide UK to three straight bowl games and his lone interception was against Penn State in the Citrus Bowl where the Wildcats beat Penn State 27-24.

The record books were rewritten with Allen who broke UK’s career sacks record with 31.5, and then the single-season sacks record in 2018 snuffing out opposing quarterbacks 17 times in the backfield. His 41 tackles for loss is just two shy of the record held by Oliver Barnett’s 43. He forced teams into11 fumbles, which tied  Danny Trevathan the Wildcat record.

Kentucky football fans watched Allen become a star and its only getting brighter and brighter in the NFL week after week.