As the 2020 Season Crawls Closer, Tom Allen and the College Football World are Still Searching for Answers

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

It’s the middle of July and usually the college football world is preparing for media days and the start of fall camps. However, the answer to the billion dollar question still remains. What will the 2020 college football season look like. Indiana head coach Tom Allen, as well as everyone else in college football, was hoping to have answers by now.

“it's July 14 and we still don't have a lot of questions answered. I think we thought that when this process was early in its stages that by this time, we would have a lot more answers but we don't, unfortunately” Allen said during a Zoom conference on Tuesday morning.

Despite the turbulent waters surrounding fall sports, Allen remains his optimistic self when it comes to the 2020 season. “I'm optimistic about us starting our season” Allen professed. “ I am. I know that there's a lot of question marks still out there, but I believe that we will start our season. I believe we will start our season on time. I do and I feel like there will be challenges to be able to maintain the season without interruption.”

The Hoosiers are scheduled to start the 2020 season on September 4th in Madison, Wisconsin to take on the Badgers. However, the Hoosiers three-game non-conference slate has been cancelled as the Big Ten announced a conference only fall sports schedule. That leaves a month-long pause from the opener to Indiana’s homecoming conference matchup with Maryland on October 10th. Expect a schedule jumble to come.

The Hoosiers have been back on campus for about a month now and while their have been a total of four COVID positive tests. “We've had a small number. There's four in all of athletics. So, within that number they're not all within our team” Allen answered when pressed to give specifics.

There has been a lot of outside noise regarding what may or may not happen. Speculation happens in a time of crisis. However, Allen has been keeping his team focused on what they know. “Right now, we know that we're preparing our football team for the 2020 season. I know that the strength staff is working extremely hard. I'm very impressed with our strength staff and the job that they're doing with them and communicating with our players” Allen said.

Players are still in small cohorts and will grow in number as team workouts get bigger and bigger. Meetings are still being held on Zoom.

“We don't have meetings, yet, in person with our players. Even with our staff it's a control group and its partial Zoom and partial in person meetings when we have the group big enough that we can meet together in a large room in the team room, actually” Allen explained. “The rest of them watch via Zoom. We may have to do those team meetings even that way when we get into fall camp. We're just trying to adapt and I think it's the progression you move through with your players.”

While Allen is optimistic about a return to play, he still has a grasp on reality.

“No matter how bad we want to play. And we are. Our players want to play. We all want to play. We're not going to put them at risk of something that would be a bad thing. That's where we got to trust in our leadership and we are. I feel good about that. I think it's just a progression” Allen said. “I know that there's probably answers that you wish you had and we don't have all of those at this point. We control what we can control. We don't blink. We don't get sidetracked on things we don't have any control over. We're also in a very responsible way preparing our football team for the 2020 season.”

Allen ended his media session today with a simple message to the general public.

“Just want to encourage everybody to where their masks, socially distance and do everything that we can to help keep those around us safe and we'll be able to get to doing the things we love to do.”