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It is there that he became a focal point of the series ‘Last Chance U’, which, for its second season, followed the plight of the East Mississippi football team and its players, including those that had struggled with discipline issues off the field.

Awe said he has yet to watch the documentary and didn’t even know his friend and former teammate was featured on it until a pair of Lions rookies Dakota Brush and Danny Vandervoort pointed it out him.

Awe’s career at Texas Tech came to an end after the 2015 season. He finished his senior year with 77 solo defensive tackles, which led his team.

He is just at the beginning of his professional career, joining the Lions in March after a stint with the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers last year and carving out a spot on special teams and opportunities in the defensive rotation through the first half of his rookie 2017 CFL season.

After his previous transgressions, Allen has received a second chance at Texas Tech, re-joining the football program for its 2017 season. His first game back included two solo tackles and six in total, in a 56-10 win over Eastern Washington on Saturday.

Awe, who tuned in to watch that contest, has a message for anyone that doubts the Texas Tech defence. School pride still runs deep.

“That’s another thing that makes me mad — how they always say the Texas Tech defence is so bad,” said Awe. “We actually have a lot of talent on that defence.

“Texas Tech is one of those schools. It’s tightly knit. We’re not the biggest school. We’re also not the smallest school. But Texas is just football and oil, is what I say. After you play with a team like that, there’s not much to do outside of Lubbock … other than be together and hang out together. It’s something that all of us former players take to heart. I love it.”