Devon Allen rehabs knee, looks ahead to 2016 Olympics

Devon Allen is six weeks beyond major knee surgery for a torn ACL. He has 18 months until the 2016 U.S. Olympic Track Trials in Eugene, where Allen of Phoenix is a two-sport college star.

In between are track and football seasons that Allen must carefully manage if he is to achieve what he rates as his most important goal, to run in the 110-meter hurdles at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Allen won the sprint hurdles not only at the 2014 NCAA Championships in 13.16 seconds -- second fastest time in collegiate history -- but also at the U.S. Outdoor Championships, the first to pull off that double since Renaldo Nehemiah in 1979. He smoothly transitioned into his first football season, after redshirting in 2013, snaring 41 passes for 684 yards and seven touchdowns for the Pac-12 champion Ducks.

In the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl, Allen suffered a right knee injury returning the opening kickoff against Florida State. That kept Allen out of the CFP Championship, one of several key missing players who could have made a difference against Ohio State, a 42-20 winner.

"It was tough, but you can't worry about it too much," Allen said. "I felt pretty good about the season. I did everything I could to make plays when I needed to. All the wide receivers blocked well to help the running backs."

Allen has become a student on ACL repair since his injury. "People don't understand the timeline," he said. "They see Adrian Peterson on the faster end of things, but it takes about a year for the ligament to become part of your body and gain full blood supply. There's always a risk before that."

Still Allen admits to feeling he can already do more than he's allowed, which mostly involves strengthening his quad, hamstring, glute and calf. "The reason most (ACL) tear is the quad or hamstring doesn't fire at the right time and it takes the force instead," he said.

Allen isn't completely ruling out running some track this summer. The World Track Championships are Aug. 22-30 in Beijing, but qualifying would require being ready for the U.S. Championships, June 25-28. That timetable seems unlikely if Allen, 20, wants to play it safe for the Olympics.

"I'm not thinking of a situation where I'm not on the Olympic team," said Allen, who won both hurdles state titles in 2012 while at Brophy Prep. "The biggest thing with track is staying healthy."

Territorial Cup Series update

Three points in the Territorial Cup Series were decided Saturday.

Arizona State's men and women finished third at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Indoor Championships, ahead of Arizona (women seventh, men ninth). At the Pac-12 Women's Swimming Championships, UA took fourth and ASU seventh.

ASU leads 6 1/2 points to 4 1/2 in the rivalry series with the final winter sport point in men's swimming to be decided this week. There are 20 points at stake in the series with 10 1/2 needed for a win. ASU took the series 11 1/2-8 1/2 in 2013-14.

California repeated as Pac-12 women's swim champion with freshman Cierra Runge earning Swimmer of the Meet. Runge broke the NCAA record in the 500-yard freestyle, set a meet record in the 1,650 free and was part of the American record-setting 800 free relay with a team that included Olympic champion Missy Franklin.

GCU volleyball upsets Ohio State

Grand Canyon men's volleyball upset No. 11 Ohio State 3-2 on Saturday after losing 3-1 to the Buckeyes on Friday. it was the Antelopes' first home win over a ranked opponent. GCU is 8-7 overall, 3-5 in Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association matches and plays Barton at noon and Concordia-Irvine at 7 p.m. on Friday and Barton again at 2 p.m. Saturday.

GCU women repeated as Western Athletic Conference indoor track champion with the men finishing second. Tom Flood is the WAC women's indoor Coach of the Year. Moya McKenzie and Josh Ralston are the WAC indoor track Athletes of the Year.

The GCU men and women were fourth at the WAC Swimming Championships.

Reach Metcalfe at 602-444-8053 or jeff.metcalfe@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him at twitter.com/jeffmetcalfe.