How Many Yards Does Kaytron Allen Need to Make Penn State Football History?
One of the lone bright spots of the 2025 Penn State offense has been running back Kaytron Allen.
Despite Allen and Nick Singleton entering the season virtually tied on the Penn State career rushing yards list, Allen has significantly outperformed Singleton this season, leading Kaytron Allen to push his name further up the list than Singleton.
Kaytron Allen Chasing Penn State Record Book
With possibly only five games remaining in his Penn State career if Penn State fails to make a bowl game (or declines a bowl invitation), how far is Kaytron Allen away from becoming Penn State’s all-time leading rusher?
Kaytron Allen set a career-high in rushing yards Saturday in Penn State’s loss to Iowa.
Despite the loss, Allen accounted for 152 of Penn State’s 266 total yards, and two of Penn State’s three touchdowns (both of Penn State’s offensive touchdowns). In the game, Allen rushed for 145 yards on the ground and caught three passes for seven yards. The effort gives Allen a total of 612 rushing yards on the year and 3,489 career rushing yards.
Where does this stack up all-time for Penn State?
With Saturday’s 145 yards, Allen now sits third all-time on Penn State’s career rushing board, behind only Saquon Barkley and Evan Royster. In Penn State’s five (maybe six?) remaining games in the 2025 season, Allen needs 443 yards to pass Royster for the all-time Penn State career record.
Over five games, this means that Allen needs 88.6 yards per game to set the record for Penn State, extremely close to his 87.4 yard average rushing yardage per game for the 2025 season.
Through five games this season, Nick Singleton was out snapping Kaytron Allen at running back, despite averaging over two and a half yards per carry less than Allen during the 2025 campaign.
The past two games, however, Allen has received the lion’s share of rushing attempts for Penn State (a 16-7 advantage against Northwestern and a 28-6 advantage against Iowa).
If this trend continues (as it should) under interim head coach Terry Smith for the rest of the season (and Allen can remain healthy) the senior running back should have a good opportunity to etch his name among the all-time greats at Penn State and hold the career rushing record when he leaves campus.
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Nick Singleton
Despite entering the season virtually tied with Kaytron Allen in career rushing yards, Singleton’s regression in the running game has caused Kaytron Allen to pull away from him in the rushing record race.
Through seven games in 2025, Singleton has rushed for only 274 yards this season, and is averaging only 3.6 yards per carry. While he is not receiving as many carries at this point in the season, Singleton may still have an opportunity to break or tie a career record for Penn State this season.
Through 48 career games, Nick Singleton has rushed for 38 touchdowns in his Penn State career. This mark is tied with Lydell Mitchell, second all-time for Penn State behind only Saquon Barkley.
With five (or six?) games remaining in his Penn State career, Singleton needs five rushing touchdowns to tie Saquon Barkley’s career mark of 43 rushing touchdowns and six touchdowns to break it.
While Singleton is not receiving as many carries with Allen stepping into the spotlight as the clear running back one, if Singleton is able to make the most of his limited carries for the rest of the season, the rushing touchdown record still could be in reach for the senior running back.
