New 4-star Wisconsin football commit Kingston Allen 'a special athlete'

A chat with Allen's high school coach about the newest Badgers commit.

Mike Rader’s boasted quite the backfield the past couple of years, and one of those standout backs is now set to play for his alma mater.

Rader’s the coach at Green Bay Notre Dame Academy, which has produced a few Division I athletes in recent memory. Among them is Northern Iowa’s Christian Collins who, according to WisSports.net, rushed for 6,560 yards and 95 touchdowns for the Tritons from 2022-24. To say there wasn’t a drop-off from Collins to Kingston Allen, the latest commitment to the University of Wisconsin football program’s 2027 class, is an understatement. Allen led the state in rushing and eclipsed single-season records last year.

“We’ve known for a long time that Kingston is a special athlete,” Rader said. “Coming in his freshman year, he was fast. That was his main thing, and he was a little bit taller than our kind of normal running back group that we tend to get. And so we’re like, this could be something special. Depends on how it all goes.

“He was one who was freshman year, got a little bit of playing time towards the end of the season. and he was behind a really good running back in Christian Collins that year. But he was very thin, but we’re like, if he fills out, there could be something. Sophomore year, he put some weight on, but he was still on the slim side. And I think in many years we would have given the ball a little bit more than we did, but Christian had a phenomenal season that year. The couple of games that Christian sat out, Kingston carried the ball, did pretty well. And at that point, you’re like, ‘OK, when it’s his turn, there could be something special going on.”