SPRINGFIELD, MO. ? New Missouri State football coach Terry Allen believes in omens.

A sign that Allen is the right man, in the right place at the right time? In the lobby of a downtown hotel on Tuesday, he crossed paths with John Q. Hammons.

“It certainly was a pleasure to meet him, and I took it as a great omen,” Allen said of the prominent Springfield businessman.

The chance meeting caused Allen to flash back four years. On a drive home to Lawrence, Kan., from a South Carolina vacation after his firing at Kansas University, Allen and his wife Lynn detoured through Springfield.

There are a dozen different ways to get to Kansas, but the Allens found themselves on the Missouri State campus.

“I told Lynn right then, ‘I hope we end up in Springfield someday,'” he said.

Allen is here. And a Missouri State football program in desperate need of a fix can only hope it’s meant to be.

Allen, associate head coach at Iowa State, emerged from 63 applicants to become the coach. He replaces Randy Ball, who was fired last month.

Athletic director Bill Rowe and school president Michael Nietzel called Allen the right man to energize a program with three winning seasons during the past 12 years.

“I thought he was really hungry for this particular job,” Nietzel said. “He was not interested in being a football coach, he was interested in being our football coach.”

Interested enough to take the Missouri State job for the same $126,000 he made at Iowa State. While Allen’s base income will be $96,803, radio and TV-show income boosts him to $126,000.

“Money was not the issue,” Allen said. “I want to be a head coach again. It’s not because of the X’s and O’s, it’s for the opportunity to touch young people’s lives.”