Hoosiers Try and Balance Recovery and Sharpness as Gator Bowl Practices Get Underway
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Image: Sammy Jacobs Hoosier Huddle
Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)
The Indiana Hoosiers hit the practice field inside the John Mellancamp Pavilion on a cool, foggy Saturday morning for the second practice ahead of their January 2nd matchup against Tennessee in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl. Early in the process of preparing for the bowl game the Hoosiers are trying to find a balance between rest, recovery and staying ready.
“It's going great, you know, get back to the swing of days getting the chemistry back, getting our legs back obviously it's getting in football shape again,” senior wide receiver Nick Westbrook said before hitting the Juggs machine for post-practice work, “It's fun, you know, having a break was nice, but it's always fun to be playing football especially this time of the year.”
Indiana head coach Tom Allen coached his first game as the Hoosiers head man in the Foster Farm Bowl in 2016 and has been on staffs that have been to bowls in the past, which has given him a clear plan of what the key to bowl preparation is.
“The biggest thing is a bowl that is this late, is how to you manage the time.” Allen said on Friday, “and so these last two weeks have been huge for us to be able to kind of learn from some things the way I liked it done in the past, the guys I worked with at other places, and things maybe I didn't like as well. But to me, the biggest thing is making sure that your players stay sharp, physically, from a conditioning perspective.”
The Hoosiers get 15 practices ahead of the Gator Bowl, but will need to budget their time wisely as there are still 20 days until kickoff. So far the Hoosiers have hit the weight room and used two of their 15 team practices and while staying sharp may be a concern for some, rest and recovery is just as important as the Hoosiers are dealing with injuries to a number of players.
Indiana center Hunter Littlejohn was one of those players that has needed the recovery time as he had “a couple of nick ups and those are back to pretty much full go so I'm feeling great.” Littlejohn added that there is a balance of taking hits in practice to stay sharp and being healthy enough to be effective in the game. “I think for us it's just key to get a couple of days throughout the weeks to really hone in on just kind of hitting heads a little bit and making sure we still got that sharpness to our physicality” he said after practice.
The Hoosiers will be back on the practice field Sunday morning for their third bowl practice. IU will face the Tennessee Volunteers in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl on January 2nd in Jacksonville, Floria.