Jared Allison, usually the quarterback for Matawan High School’s football team, made a different, dramatic play around midseason when he raced down the right side of the field, tipped a pass from backup quarterback Kashawn Barnes, who just went into the game, while he had a defender on him, and pulled in the ball for a touchdown against Rumson-Fair Haven.
It was one of two touchdown passes the versatile athlete caught during the season. But he expects to spend the next four seasons at that spot after giving a verbal commitment to the University of New Hampshire midway through last week, a few days after making an official visit there.
It was one of two schools Allison visited, along with the University of Eastern Illinois the previous weekend. Both are NCAA Division IAAschools. Rutgers also came on late, but coach Greg Schiano offered only a preferred walk-on opportunity, and Allison said he wanted the financial offer.
“It came down to New Hampshire and Eastern Illinois, and both are in great college towns,” he said. “I liked the campus a lot. It felt like it was home but not home [being far away]. A lot of New Jersey players are on the team.”
Allison said he plans to study business at New Hampshire, and the college wants him as a wide receiver and a return man for kickoffs and punts. He said he doesn’t mind moving to a new position, since the Catamounts also play a spread offense like Matawan does. New Hampshire ended its 8-5 season in a loss in the NCAA Division I-AA quarterfinals.
“It feels fine to me,” saidAllison. “I like making plays and having the ball in the open field where I canmake people miss. It’s what I like to do.”
He’ll have a quality mentor helping prepare him— his cousin Charlie Rodgers, who excelled at Matawan before going on to a college and NFL career with the Seattle Seahawks, Miami Dolphins and Houston Texans as a receiver. Rodgers was an assistant coach at Matawan this season.
Allison often made defenders miss tackling him, which helped overshadow the fact that he measures 5-8 in height as a receiver. His play at both spots as well as on defense helped the Huskies ascend to the No. 1 ranking in the Shore for the fist time in 20 years and to the NJSIAA Group II Central Jersey finals for the second straight year, where they lost to Rumson-Fair Haven. They won it the previous season.
Despite the bitter season-ending defeat, Allison said he can look back fondly on his team going unbeaten in the regular season and winning a state-leading 19 straight games, including the Shore Conference Liberty Division championship.
“Notmany teams can say they went unbeaten all the way to the state finals. It’s just too bad we couldn’t win it, but a lot of teams can’t do that [go unbeaten to the finals] like we did.”
He also performed well despite coming off injuries that kept him on the sidelines for much of the preseason and gave Barnes more of an opportunity to sharpen his skills
“I didn’t get into shape until game four,” said Allison, and he stayed in stride from there.