* Ashton Allen chose USC over offers from Oregon and LSU
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The University of Southern California's men's track and field program just keeps re-stocking.
The Trojans earned the signature of yet another blue-chip 400 meter recruit on Wednesday, as Bullis School (MD) senior Ashton Allen, the No. 13 athlete on MileSplit's top 50 recruits in the Class of 2020, landed with a program on National Signing Day that has produced recent NCAA Championships both at the indoor and outdoor level.
Allen is no doubt one of the top 200m and 400m talents in the country. He ended his indoor season with a US No. 1 effort in the 300m (33.62), a US No. 2 time in the 400m (46.99) and a US No. 2 mark in the 500m (1:04.60).
Outdoors, while he was working through injury, he posted a top time of 47.43, which was the No. 17 time of the junior class this past spring season.
He also owns outdoor PRs 20.76 in the 200m, a US No. 3 mark in 2019, and 47.43 in the 400m. Allen split his time in high school between track and football, so a primary focus toward oval in college could prove somewhat of a dividend early on.
But there's no doubt USC has found the right blueprint. Head coach Carol Smith Gilbert and assistant coach Quincy Watts, the program's sprints lead, have not only recruited spectacularly, but they've engineered success beyond it.
Watts, going into his seventh season and named as the USTFCCA Men's Assistant Coach of the Year in 2018, guided Michael Norman and the Trojans' 4x400 team to NCAA Outdoor titles in 2018.
In recent years, USC has welcomed some of the country's finest sprint talent to Southern California, including the likes of Zach Shinnick (2018), Ayden Owens (2018), Nicholas Ramey (2019) and Brian Herron (2019).
The addition of Allen -- joining his brother, Eric, who's also on the team -- adds to the program's once again rising potential in the 200m and 400m. And let's not forget ....he's got two seasons left in high school to break 46 seconds.
