By Rustin Dodd, Elise Devlin and Jayson Jenks
If you know one story about Josh Allen’s college recruitment, it’s that he did not receive a single Division I scholarship offer. Overlooked at Firebaugh High in California’s Central Valley, Allen instead attended Reedley, a nearby community college, where he drafted a short email with a link to a highlight video and blasted it out to more than 1,000 college coaches.
Baked into that story is a larger idea: Allen believed in himself at a time when nobody else did. His confidence and force of personality led him to the University of Wyoming, where he developed from a raw gunslinger into a top-10 pick and future franchise quarterback.
Ten years later, he’s a co-favorite to win his first NFL MVP award.
Allen’s talent is undeniable, but it’s only part of the reason he’s successful. To understand how he became one of the NFL’s most authentic leaders, The Athletic called his childhood friends, college teammates and coaches.
For three seasons in Laramie, Wyo., Allen heaved 75-yard bombs in practice, lived off Applebee’s and charmed teammates with his leadership style, a goofy sincerity and plenty of drinking games.
“His personality goes a long way as far as being a leader, ” said Tanner Gentry, a teammate of Allen in Wyoming and with the Bills. “It radiates throughout the whole team.”
The stories of Allen’s college days are legendary, informative and completely college. And according to close friends and former teammates, they help explain the essence of Josh Allen, the player, teammate and leader.
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Craig Bohl, former Wyoming head coach: People follow him. He’s very authentic.
Cooper Rothe, former Wyoming kicker: We always used to describe him as a big little kid.
Tyler Vander Waal, former Wyoming quarterback: A big-ass little kid.
Markus Espinoza, friend: He’s exactly the same guy that I’ve known since I was 4 or 5 years old.
Adam Pilapil, former Wyoming linebacker: The exact same dude, and that’s what makes him great.
Vander Waal: Our lockers were right next to each other. He pulled a Nerf gun out of his locker. I’m like: “What are you doing?” He’s like: “Dude, we’re about to have a Nerf gun fight in the locker room.”
Espinoza: He’ll take your watch off. He’ll shake your hand and be looking you dead in your eyes and just take your watch.
James Price, former Wyoming receiver: He’ll get on YouTube before meetings and he’ll learn a magic trick and then pull it out in the meeting.
Rothe: My freshman year, I’m a kicker. We’re standing on the sidelines during a team scrimmage. Sure enough, the ball ends up on the sideline. I’m holding the ball, usually the equipment managers are quick to come grab it, but I see Josh calling my name: “Cooper, Cooper, throw me the ball, let’s go.”
I’m supposed to give it to the equipment manager, which is the right move, but Josh is the team captain. I don’t want to be the guy to say no to Josh. So I make eye contact with him, throw probably the best ball of my life, perfect spiral. As I release the ball, I see him look away on purpose. Best ball of my life. Going right at his head. He has his helmet on. It hits him. He flails his arm, throws his head back … “Cooper, what the hell, man?”
Tanner Gentry, former Wyoming receiver: He’s always f—ing with people.
Rothe: Everybody’s looking at me, a freshman on the sidelines. I’m freaking out. Sure enough, he goes: “I was kidding.” That was Josh. He took care of me after that.
Milo Hall, former Wyoming running back: He treated everyone the same.
Rothe: He knew all the walk-ons, the janitor, equipment managers, everybody by name.
Vander Waal: That’s just who he was. He cared about the relationships he made.
Cameron Coffman, former Wyoming quarterback: Leadership essentially comes down to influence, and whether you’re an NFL quarterback or a 10-year-old kid on the playground at school, there are certainly people that other people are attracted to, that they’ll follow. And from the beginning, he had that characteristic.
Hall: He’s just a person you want to be around.
Pilapil: We would go to Applebee’s every Tuesday and Thursday after 9 p.m. for half-priced apps.
Rothe: Oh, we lived there.
Nick Smith, former Wyoming quarterback: Boneless wings. At half price. They’re doing three, four, five rounds.
Pilapil: One time I think he was up in the 250s in college because we would hammer half-priced apps.
Gentry: We did a lot of the same sh– your average college guy does.
Vander Waal: Obviously, being in Wyoming, we liked to go out and drink a lot. Our saying was, “Win or lose, we still booze.”
Gentry: Fourth of July trip. My grandparents own a cabin in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. We had a big crew there and it’s out in the middle of nowhere so we’re playing drinking games. It was an unreal trip. About a week and a half later, my grandma texted me that one of the trees was chopped down and the cover for the axe was still on it right by the tree. I sent it to the group and was like: “Who chopped this tree down?” And Josh was like: “That was me.” I was like: “Dude, you left the cover on.” And he goes: “Oh, that’s why it was so hard to chop it down.”
Smith: That’s Josh: “Yeah, that was me.”
Gentry: It was a completely live tree, too. He chopped it down with the cover on the axe. I was just with my grandma two weeks ago and she was like: “Tell Josh I’m charging interest on this tree.”
Josh Allen accounted for 56 touchdowns in 27 games played with Wyoming from 2015-17. (Steven Branscombe / Getty Images)
Vander Waal: He had this drinking game … the game is called Buffalo. Where if you hold a drink in your right hand, you got to finish your drink. I don’t know who invented this game, but Josh was adamant about playing it. So every time we were out, if Josh caught you with a beer or drink in your right hand, he’d call you out on it. He’d be like: “Buffalo!” And you had to finish your drink.
Brent Vigen, former Wyoming offensive coordinator: He still has the kid in him.
Espinoza: He one time ran down a dog. I’m not going to preface the whole night, but … somebody — myself — had to be carried into their house. It was late at night, probably about 1 in the morning. I lived out where there weren’t a bunch of street lights and I lived right behind a lake. I had a black Labrador retriever and my dog got out and took off. Josh takes off. I mean, our friends followed him in a car and said he caught up to the dog after a mile and brought the dog back. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe it.
Pilapil: His truck in college — and he had it in high school — was this super-lifted RAM 1500 with these big-ass basses in there.
Smith: It was definitely one of those farm-kid, beefed-up trucks.
Pilapil: We were getting ready to play Northern Illinois before his first start. It was a Thursday or Friday and he was on the phone with his dad and he crashed his truck into the parking gate leaving our apartment complex and had a bloody nose. I had broken my ankle so I’m in the training room just rolling around on a scooter. This dude is in there and I’m like, “What the f— happened to you?” And he’s like: “Dude, I just drove my truck into the freaking gate.”
Vander Waal: He is who he is, and he doesn’t change for anybody.
Gentry: Dudes ride for Josh because they know he’s loyal for the team and he’ll do anything for his teammates and friends.
Vander Waal: Servant leadership was big for him. He was always like: “What can I do for you?”
Hall: We had a little routine every Thursday, where we’d go to Dickey’s Barbecue or McAlister’s.
Coffman: I was a fifth-year senior and he was a young guy, and he asked if he could take me out to dinner and pay for it. I was like: “Why is this kid doing this?” I think that’s just who he is.
Vander Waal: When I first got to Wyoming, I didn’t have a car and I was a freshman in the dorms. And obviously it snowed a ton there. Josh would always go out of his way to pick me up from the dorms.
Hall: Back in 2016, one of my older brothers passed away. Josh was there for me every single day. He was there checking to make sure I was doing well mentally, physically and spiritually. He was a big brother so we talked about everything. He asked me where my head was, what he could do to help. … Just saying, “Bro, I love you.”
Vander Waal: Every pregame, there would be three of us quarterbacks warming up and we’d always go through our snaps. Right before we’d go back inside, he’d shake all three centers’ hands, and all three quarterbacks, and he’d be like, “I love you guys.” He’d say that religiously every game: “I love you, man.”
Vigen: He was such a good teammate because he could relate.
Rothe: If he’s our best player, if he’s the captain, and he knows all the walk-ons by name, if he’s the one cleaning the locker room after practice, leading the conditioning races, working out harder than anybody, I think that showed nobody was too good to be a part of the team.
Smith: Before the bowl game against BYU (in 2016), he was talking through about maybe going to the (NFL) Draft and just kind of weighing all the options. I remember him just asking what I thought and what I would recommend doing. And I thought that was really humbling. Here I am his backup and he respected my opinion enough to ask.
Coffman: A lot of people are extremely talented, but they can’t pull a group together like that. If people who have different beliefs, different backgrounds, can all rally around one person, it’s a pretty special trait.
Pilalpil: That’s why people around him love him.
Price: He’s probably the best competitor I’ve ever been around in my entire life.
Hall: He always had that Kobe mentality: “I’m the best, and I’m gonna prove it today.”
Price: He’s obsessed with growing. He used to do these magic tricks that started out really lame. And we’re like, “Dude, you just need to come back with some cooler tricks.”
Pilapil: He’s really good with sleight of hand.
Price: Even now if you hand him a deck of cards, he’s going to pull out some magic trick that I haven’t seen before. And it’s just like, “Dude, you’re Josh Allen. When do you find time to sit down to learn magic tricks?” But it’s because he’s obsessed with his own personal growth.
Pilapil: If you play the kid in spades, you know you’re going to get f—ed with. He’ll never admit to it, but he’s going to change the deck or slip cards here and there.
Espinoza: He’s obsessed with cards.
Pilapil: We would play Monopoly Deal and he would blatantly cheat. He went and bought another pack of Monopoly Deal cards so that he could pack his hand with the high-powered cards.
Gentry: He doesn’t have an off switch. He’ll do anything it takes to win.
Pilapil: When we lost to Oregon in 2017, we had a bunch of people up, a bunch of families in town, and the dude locked himself in his room and played “Grand Theft Auto” for like six hours, running people over and doing what you do in “Grand Theft Auto,” to get his anger out.
C.J. Johnson, former Wyoming receiver: He takes his losses a little too hard on himself.
Smith: He wasn’t dejected. It was almost like a fierce disappointment. It wasn’t sulking. It was more like fuel.
Price: He’s always had that confidence and belief in himself, even when everyone else around him doubted.
Gentry: The first spring he came early from juco. We were working out before spring ball started, and we were in the indoor practice facility doing one-on-ones against the DBs. He only let us run go routes. The receivers were kind of getting pissed. … He would say: “Just run a go, run a go,” and he would wait for us to run 50 yards down the field just to throw it as far as he could just to prove a point.
Johnson: After practice he would always stand in the end zone and just try to throw the ball as far as he could.
Pilapil: We used to play “NCAA (Football) 14” until like 5 in the morning with three players on the same team, and we only ran Hail Mary. We ran Hail Mary and we’d check the tailback into a wheel route. It was freaking awesome.
Gentry: When he was named the starter, he told me: “Dude, if I’m rolling out, don’t come back to the ball. I don’t want to throw a 10-yard or 15-yard completion. You run to the end zone and I’ll throw it up and we’ll have a chance.”
Vigen: We had the Brett Favre rule. I grew up a Vikings fan and had a lingering memory of the interception in the NFC Championship on a rollout play that he had no business throwing. So we had a Favre rule … if you’re rolling right or left, you don’t throw behind your body back to the middle of the field.
Bohl: It was a cold blustery spring day, so I was standing back and we called a traditional bootleg. The rules on the bootleg were: If the fullback is open in the flat, take it. Just take the profit. If he’s not open, check the tight end. If he’s open, take that. And the third option is to run. Well, on this particular play, the fullback was open. Josh didn’t take it. The tight end was open. He didn’t take it. Instead he threw a ROPE on a backside post against a 60 mile per hour wind 60-some yards down the field. A touchdown. He was happy, much to my displeasure because he didn’t follow the rules. I said: “Josh, the rules are you throw it to the fullback if the fullback is open.” He looked at me and goes: “No, Coach, Favre says touchdowns first.”
Vigen: He truly believed in his ability and was never going to back down from it.
Bohl: Needless to say, there’s a cowboy in him. I think that probably captures everything about him that’s really special.
Gentry: He used to live at an apartment complex called The Verge, and they were on the top floor. We would go out in the street, and he would just try to throw beer cans as far as he could. They would explode on the ground and we’d drink ’em.
Vigen: He was a super intense competitor, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously.
Pilapil: We were at the American Century (golf tournament) in July. He was still wrestling with the fellas, still throwing beers 50 yards and trying to catch them one-handed.
Gentry: He’s truly one of a kind.
Espinoza: He is just the most confident and sure-about-himself person in the world.
Gentry: The mindset piece of it, he definitely believes he’s the best in the world. But you’ll never hear him talking about how good he is.
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; photos: Aaron Ontiveroz, John Cordes / Getty Images)