Kingston Allen’s high school football career will come to an end sometime in the next two weeks.
The area might never see a player like the Green Bay Notre Dame running back again.
That old sports adage that records are made to be broken is something Allen has taken literally.
Advertisement
He is on the cusp of perhaps his biggest achievement, entering a WIAA Division 2 semifinal playoff game against Union Grove on Nov. 13 needing 214 yards to surpass former Columbus star Colton Brunell as the state’s all-time rushing king.
Allen recently joined Brunell as the only players in state history with more than 7,000 career rushing yards.
Brunell finished with 7,416. Allen stands at 7,203.
Rushing for more than 200 yards in a semifinal wouldn’t normally be a lock, but it might be for Allen if he stays healthy.
He has rushed for more than 214 yards in a game 10 times this season. The only reason he didn’t do it in the other two contests was because he was pulled early with six carries and 136 yards against Manitowoc and seven attempts for 122 yards against Green Bay East after Notre Dame beat the two by a combined 139-0.
Advertisement
Brunell set the rushing record in the opening round of the D5 playoffs in 2023 and surpassed 7,000 yards the following week against Prairie du Chien.
“It was always in the back of the whole team’s mind,” said former Columbus coach Andrew Selgard, who is now the assistant principal, athletic director and football coach at Horicon. “We knew it was coming. We knew it was going to be historic. It was one of those things that was celebrated, but it was in a very workmanlike mentality.
“Like, yeah, we did this and we did it as a team. It’s obviously a great individual honor for him, but Colton being the first one to acknowledge that he didn’t accomplish this on his own. For us, it was a great sense of pride. We celebrated it, and it’s like, ‘Alright, it’s time to get back to work because we have a playoff game to win.'”
And now that the record is close to being broken?
Advertisement
“When I saw that he needed 200-some yards to break it, I’m excited for Kingston,” Selgard said. “It’s a great accomplishment on his end. I love Colton, I love what he did for our program at Columbus. So, it’s a little bittersweet. We are a small school, and the work that was put in by our school to make that happen, does it diminish it a little bit? No.
“It hurts the pride a little bit, but I’m excited for Kingston. He is a heck of a running back, heck of a talent. If you are going to have it broken by somebody, that’s a person you’d want it to be broken by.”
Allen also has a chance to break a record some believed was unbreakable, although he likely would need two games to have a chance.
Former Random Lake standout Luke Hagel holds the state scoring record with 802 career points, which he accomplished before graduating in 1999.
Advertisement
Allen needs 43 points to surpass Hagel, who was a do-everything player.
Hagel scored 112 touchdowns, converted four 2-point attempts, kicked 92 extra points and booted 10 field goals.
Green Bay Notre Dame’s Kingston Allen (7) runs the ball against Pulaski High School during a WIAA Division 2 Level Three playoff game on Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, at Notre Dame Academy in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Notre Dame won the game, 35-7. Tork Mason/Green Bay Press-Gazette
Allen has scored 126 total TDs – 125 rushing and one receiving – and has converted two 2-point attempts for 760 points.
If he doesn’t get any more conversions, Allen needs seven TDs to tie the record and eight to break it.
He scored a career-high eight TDs against Greenfield in the playoffs last season, but Union Grove’s defense has not allowed more than 28 points in a game this season and has permitted 14 or fewer in 10 of 12 contests.
Advertisement
As for other notable records?
Allen already shattered the state record with his 126 career TDs and is the only player to twice rush for more than 3,000 yards in a season.
He set a single-season record by rushing for more than 400 yards four times in 2025, has the most 300-yard career rushing games (7), the most 200-yard games (20), the most rushing yards in a season (3,436 in 2025) and the most touchdowns scored in a season (64 and counting in 2026).
Those aren’t his only records – he has a great chance to become the first player to twice be named the state’s Gatorade player of the year – but there isn’t enough space to go through all of them.
Advertisement
Setting rushing record involves several factors
A player can’t run for more than 7,000 yards without being a special talent, and there is no disputing Allen is one after what he has accomplished.
But they also need to be in a great situation for all that talent to be maximized.
Notre Dame’s offense has run the ball 85.9% of the time this season after running it 85.1% last season.
Allen would still get plenty of opportunities elsewhere, but he might not get it to the extent he does on a team like West De Pere.
The Tritons have always been built on the run game, and when it works, Notre Dame coach Michael Rader doesn’t get cute.
Advertisement
Why not keep doing it over and over, or at least 85% of the time, until you get stopped?
A running back also needs a solid offensive line and a team successful enough that it routinely plays into November.
Selgard was an assistant under Bay Port coach Steven Jorgensen at Fond du Lac when standout running back and future NFL player Braelon Allen was there before he took over at Columbus and made Brunell the starting running back entering his sophomore season.
He knows what a great running back looks like and what they do for a team. Braelon Allen played for the University of Wisconsin after high school, Brunell is at the University of North Dakota and Kingston Allen committed to the Badgers but has recently been offered scholarships from Ohio State and Alabama in hopes of flipping him.
Advertisement
“Having done this a long time, teams that can run the football are typically very successful in the playoffs,” said Selgard, who led Columbus to the D4 state championship in 2022. “You think about the individuals that have broken this [rushing] record, they come from successful programs. You have got to play good defense, have got to be able to run the ball in the playoffs.
“That’s really a great recipe for winning. Not to say that you can’t do it primarily passing, but if you look at who is traditionally powerhouse teams, you look at the Bay Ports. You look at the Kimberlys. Arrowheads. They all can run the football. That’s really where it comes in, is you have a special talent like a Kingston or a Colton or a Braelon, and you want to not just highlight them, but use them as part of your system to be able to win consistently.”
The state rushing record was held for 16 years by Hilbert’s Mike Firkus until Iola-Scandinavia’s Bryce Huettner surpassed him in 2018.
He had the record for just one season before Racine Lutheran’s Tyler Tenner came along, and Tenner held it until Brunell topped it in 2023.
Advertisement
What is noteworthy about Allen is that most of his yards have all been in two seasons.
Entering their junior years, Tenner already had 2,342 yards, Brunell 2,221 and Huettner 1,428.
Allen had 433.
Indeed, local fans may never see this again.
“He’s No. 2 all-time [in rushing], it’s only been seen once before and it hasn’t been around here,” Rader said. “I don’t know. It’s generational, is a term people use. It’s fun to watch while we are watching him.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay Notre Dame star Kingston Allen chases state history
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
