2021 Countdown to Kickoff: 44 Days (Thomas Allen)

Written by: Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

We are just 44 days away from the kickoff of the 2021 Indiana Football season in Iowa City. Today we take a look at the Coach’s son, Thomas Allen who is entering his fifth season with the Indiana program.

Name: Thomas Allen

Hometown: Tampa, Florida

Position: Linebacker

Year: Redshirt Senior

Height/Weight: 6’3”/240 pounds

While the last two seasons ended well for the Hoosiers, Thomas Allen’s ended the opposite way. Allen had both his 2019 and 2020 seasons cut short with injuries to his shoulder and a gruesome hip injury respectively.

Allen is expected to make a full recovery and hopefully be back for the 2021 season. He gave us an update during spring practice.

“First and foremost, rehab is going good.” Allen said. “I was able to run on the field for the first time, just jogging, but baby steps. This has been a very long process, and I still have a long way to go. To be able to see that improvement has been great. Absolutely, I've had a fair share of injuries in my career. Something like this, I'm getting married this summer, so I sat down and talked to my fiancée, talked to my family. We had those conversations, but at the end of the day you only get to play Division I football once and I want to finish my career the right way.”

Allen has had a productive career at IU posting 53 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, a sack and an interception.

While recovering from injury Allen has seen football from a different perspective and it should help him grow as a player.

“Throughout my career I've been able to help out our young guys. I've been blessed that I know our defense pretty well and be able to help the young guys when I can.” Allen explained. “I was able to be in the meetings a lot more and see the coaching side. I got to help out on some breakdown of film throughout the last couple of weeks. That was fun. I've never seen that side. I've seen it, but I've never really been a part of that side, getting ready for a game. It's kind of eye opening. I've kind of thought I've always wanted to be a coach. It's in the family. It was cool to be able to do that, from that point of view and be able to help my team as much as possible while I was hurt and not able to be on the field, I could help them in the meeting room. It was better than nothing.”

A healthy Allen would make an already deep linebacking rotation even deeper and give IU a chance to put a player they trust in the game while getting starters some rest.