History was made in Happy Valley on Saturday night, folks.

Kaytron Allen, in the penultimate game of his stellar collegiate career, torched the Nebraska defense with 25 carries for 160 yards and two rushing touchdowns. While his classmate, Nick Singleton, tied Saquon Barkley’s program rushing touchdown record, Allen was the one who broke a record on Senior Day, passing Evan Royster to become the all-time rushing yard leader.

Royster’s record of 3,932 rushing yards held for just over 15 years, initially set on October 30, 2010, against Michigan. Since then, several dynamic running backs attempted to unseat him, but hadn’t for one reason or another.

Saquon Barkley spent just three years in State College before being drafted No. 2 overall in the 2018 NFL Draft. Miles Sanders departed for the NFL after only being a one-year starter. Journey Brown was on his way, but medically retired. But the biggest threat to Royster came with the arrival of a dynamic tandem in 2022 that would wind up splitting carries for their entire collegiate careers, but they were both able to climb into the top five in program history.

Prior to Royster, the rushing record was held by Curt Warner, who amassed 3,398 yards from 1979-1982 and was a thousand-yard rusher for the 1982 national champions. He was the first 3,000-yard rusher in program history and was able to narrowly hold onto his record despite DJ Dozier, Curtis Enis, Blair Thomas, and Tony Hunt all coming within 200 yards when their collegiate careers wrapped up over the next 30 years.

Royster was a four-star recruit out of Chantilly, Virginia, in the class of 2006 and took a redshirt for the 2006 season. Back then, redshirts were not allowed to enter any games, so Royster did not get an opportunity to accrue extra yardage in up to four games like some do nowadays (but not Singleton and Allen).

He ran for 70 yards in the season-opening blowout victory against FIU in September 2007, initially sharing carries with the likes of Austin Scott and Rodney Kinlaw. The two seniors would continue to share carries all season, but Royster would stand out as the team’s second-leading rusher. He ran for 126 yards and a touchdown against Purdue in early November and scored a go-ahead touchdown in the Alamo Bowl to beat Texas A&M.

He finished his redshirt freshman season rushing for 513 yards and five touchdowns on a stellar 6.3 yards per carry. He would enter 2008 in prime position to be the bellcow back, which he would do for the most part despite splitting carries with freshman Stephfon Green. He opened the year with a three-touchdown game in a blowout against then-FCS Coastal Carolina and did it again against Oregon State the following week.

He would run for over 100 yards on five different occasions in 2008, including a monster 171-yard performance in a blowout win over Michigan in mid-October for the team’s first win against the Wolverines in 12 years.

He took a backseat in the 2009 Rose Bowl to Green, but ultimately finished the 2008 season with 191 carries for 1,236 yards and 12 touchdowns. At the time, it was the 10th most prolific rushing season in program history.

In 2009, Royster continued to get the bulk of the carries, logging a career-high 205 carries in another strong season that would end with 11 wins for the Nittany Lions. He posted another six 100-yard games, including four in conference play. He would be held to under 50 yards just twice in 13 games, including a season-low 36 yards in a frustrating loss to No. 15 Ohio State that killed Penn State’s hopes of a Big Ten title.

Still, he logged another 1,169 yards on almost six yards a carry and even added 187 receiving yards with the first two receiving touchdowns of his collegiate career. He caught a 49-yard touchdown pass from Darryl Clark in a non-conference game against Syracuse.

Royster was able to forego his senior season to go to the NFL Draft, but elected to return for the 2010 season with 2,918 rushing yards, just 480 yards shy of the record. He started 2010 extremely slowly, running for 40 yards or less in three consecutive games but surpassing 3,000 career yards against Kent State.

With Green and now Silas Redd in the backfield, you can only imagine what was being said after three straight subpar outings, but Royster emerged in the fourth game of the year against Temple, rushing for a career-high 187 yards on 26 carries in a 22-13 win. The next week, after running for 56 yards against Iowa, he moved into fourth on the all-time list.

In the next two games against Illinois and Minnesota, he would accrue another 97 rushing yards to be up to 3,368 yards, second all-time. He entered the game against Michigan, the team he had his breakout against two years prior, just 30 yards short.

He got a lot more than that. Royster notched 154 yards and two touchdowns in a shootout victory that etched his name into Penn State history. Warner’s 30-year record was gone, and Royster was able to create some distance with another 414 yards over his final five games.

In his performances as a Nittany Lion, he posted his three best receiving games of his career and went out in style at the 2010 Outback Bowl, rushing for 98 yards and tallying 149 total yards in a loss to Florida.

Royster finished his collegiate career with 686 carries for 3,932 yards and 29 rushing touchdowns. He added another 61 catches for 562 receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns. After five years in college, he declared for the 2011 NFL Draft and was selected in the sixth round by the Washington Redskins.

His NFL career would be relatively brief. He ran for 328 yards in limited reps as a rookie, but would not see many carries for the rest of his career. He only had 25 carries for the next two seasons for 88 yards, as Alfred Morris had arrived in Landover to take the full-time starting job for the next several years. He would be released prior to the 2014 season, coincidentally losing his roster spot to Redd, with whom he had competed for touches in 2010.

He signed with the Atlanta Falcons during the 2015 preseason, but sustained an injury that forced him to the injured reserve. That would mark the end of his football career, as he’d enter the finance world, where he’s currently a financial advisor at Truist Investment Services.

Until Allen, the closest anyone got to Royster’s record in the last 15 years was Barkley, who ultimately finished 89 yards short. It’s entirely possible Barkley could’ve gotten the record if, say, the 2016 team made the College Football Playoff or the 2017 team had gotten to play for a Big Ten Championship, but the missed opportunities of that era of Penn State football go far beyond this neat trivia.

But now, after 15 years, there’s a new all-time rushing king. It’s fitting that the man who unseated Royster was also a Virginia kid, as Allen grew up in Norfolk before finishing his high school career at IMG Academy in Florida.

There’s still one (maybe two!) more game for Allen to create some separation. Appreciate him for what little time we have left with him, folks.