RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A noted political scientist joined one of Sen. George Allen's former college football teammates in claiming the senator used a racial slur to refer to blacks in the early 1970s, a claim Allen dismisses as ''ludicrously false.''

Larry J. Sabato, one of Virginia's most-quoted political science professors and a classmate of Allen's in the early 1970s, said in a televised interview Monday that Allen used the epithet.

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Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, would not tell The Associated Press how he knew Allen used the n-word. He told Chris Matthews on MSNBC that he did not know whether it was true that Allen used the word frequently while in college.

''I'm simply going to stay with what I know is the case and the fact is he did use the n-word, whether he's denying it or not,'' Sabato said.

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''The story and his comments and assertions in there are completely false,'' Allen said during an interview with AP reporters and editors. ''I don't remember ever using that word and it is absolutely false that that was ever part of my vocabulary.''

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