Hoosiers Set to Fix What was Broken in 2022

Written by: TJ Inman (@TJHoosierHuddle)

The Indiana Hoosiers entered the 2021 season opener at Iowa with a national ranking, high expectations and lots of attention centered on how they would follow up their exceptional 2020 campaign. Before the first quarter was over, the bloom was off the rose and the Hoosiers never recovered. They limped to a miserable 2-10 record and the outside view of the program has reverted back to one of pessimism and non-existent expectations. With the transfer portal, players can leave a floundering squad in search of greener pastures.

However, program leaders Cam Jones and Jack Tuttle had something different in mind. They knew the things that needed be changed and wasted no time laying out a plan for head coach Tom Allen.

The day after the Purdue game, another defeat to wrap up the season, Jones and Tuttle asked for a meeting in Tom Allen’s office. The three spoke and the two players shared the things they wanted changed. As a group, they developed a plan to enact the change they felt could get the program back on the tracks.

“Cam and Jack came to me,” Tom Allen said of the meeting at Big Ten Media Days. “They had a PowerPoint presentation put together. We adjusted it a little bit but that was very powerful. You ask what we’ve been focused on during the spring, there’s qualities that I think make a great football team: the first one is they communicate, the second one is they are player-led. I was fired up, I knew right there that things were going to be different.”

The content of the meeting held the day after the season ended and the subsequent PowerPoint presentation will remain private to the team but hints were given by Allen and Jones at Media Day.

“It’s never big things. We have a lot of really unique things I believed we do,” Allen said. “I believe in them and they believe in them but I’m telling you, there’s just the little subtle stuff that I feel like they recognized and they saw and noticed and we talked about. Being player led like that, I don’t think I can put a value on.”

The PowerPoint presentation was given by Jones and Tuttle and was shown to the players when everyone returned for camp. Tom Allen allowed the players to do the presentation as a players-only meeting, trusting their leadership to get the message across. While we won’t know all that was shared, we do know one result is the formation of accountability groups that are spread across position groups.

AJ Barner and Cam Jones both shared that those groups have been very impactful throughout the offseason. In addition, the leadership council has grown from 24 to 30 players and Allen added a true freshman for the first time. Tom Allen and the Hoosiers are counting on fixing the little things that will repair the foundational culture can help lead to a 2022 campaign that is one to remember for the right reasons.