Media Monday: Notes and Quotes From Tom Allens Press Conference (9/12)

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Indiana head coach Tom Allen took the podium on this holiday Monday to put a bow on the win over Ball State and preview Eastern Illinois. 

Notes:

IU Players of the Week:

o   Offense: Shaun Shivers

o   Defense: Dasan McCullough

o   Special Teams: James Evans and Andison Coby

o   Scout Team: Kaiden Turner, Ricky Tamis, Mitchell Evans

Quotes:

TOM ALLEN: 

On Facing Western Kentucky:

“There's no question. Your point is well-stated. That's obviously my emphasis as well. Our guys understand fully who they're playing. 

Last year was a dogfight down there at their place. We were fortunate to come out with a win. The system has stayed the same. Head coach is now running the offense. 

So don't expect to see a lot of different things schematically. They've got some different personnel, got a new quarterback. Very, very talented player. Kind of found a very similar guy in terms of the way he is able to run that offense and just playmakers everywhere. 

They're going to play, we know, with a certain level of tempo and the way they're going to stretch you laterally, vertically, all the different things that their system does. 

Boy, they gave a lot of people -- we went through and tried to find different games from the past season, and really nobody really slowed them down. They had a lot of points and a lot of yards in every single game, which is the reason why they're the number one offense in the nation in about every category. 

I just think you are going to see a very similar style. They've done some things a little bit differently maybe in the run game this year, but at the same time they have their system, they believe in it, and they're going to play it to a high level. 

It's impressive to watch. There's no doubt. Coach Helton has done a tremendous job.”

On the Performance of the Offensive Line without Matthew Bedford:

“I thought they responded well. We ran the football a lot better. We needed to. As we always say with that group, there's a chemistry involved, so not having Matt we knew was going to be challenging and create some issues that we have to learn to work through, but I thought they played well together, ran the ball well, gave our quarterback time to throw and did a good job. 

I thought Parker did a nice job. They had some defensive ends that we were concerned about athletically that could create some issues and did so the week before as well and their ability to disrupt was what we were concerned about. I thought the guys did a good job covering them up and creating some creases for running backs to run through. They ran for 239 yards and 6.6 yards a carry, which is really important for us to be able to do that. 

So that starts up front, and they get, obviously, all the criticism when it doesn't happen, and they should be given the praise when it does. 

We have to keep working hard together. We're going to face bigger, more athletic groups as we go the next several weeks. They have to continue to gel and mesh and work together. Parker to me is a smart, tough, dependable guy, so I expect him to keep getting better.“

On Facing Former Hoosier and Current WKU RB Davion Ervin-Poindexter:

“Davion, really so proud of him. When he was here for us as a walk-on and just worked so hard and had to play last year and just tried to help him find an opportunity to go and get a scholarship. He was able to do that. 

I just really appreciate his work ethic, his perseverance. He has some of the same qualities I was talking about with D.J. Just worked his way. He was a really good high school player and developed himself into a really good college player. 

He has made some really nice runs. He is one of their leading playmakers on offense. That's exciting for him. They've got several running backs they play with. Like I said, they have some expanded run games that they really didn't have as much last year schematically that they're now utilizing, so that makes him have more things to stop and scheme against. 

Yeah, they've got three players that they rotate in there. They play them all pretty equally, and they're all able to catch and run and block and do the things they need to do. 

Really proud of him, and yeah, now we have to go find a way to stop him.”

 On Grading the Defense Through Two Games:

“That kind of really soured my perspective on how we played, to be honest with you. Especially the last one. We definitely cut down the missed tackles. There were much fewer of those, which is great. 

I thought we played really hard. We were trying to find guys that weren't bursting to the ball in every way. 

What we did, though, was we had some execution mistakes that I thought was lack of focus. That to me was not acceptable, and a couple of them are older guys. We gave up two touchdowns that were just blown assignments. We can't do that. 

That was frustrating to me, but that goes back to the mental side of it. It wasn't a physical mistake. It was more not getting your eyes in the right spot, not executing, and eyes just not being locked in. 

I think we still have to work hard at our run-fits. We did better, but here's the thing for us, we're not a traditional run-fit type system. We do things maybe a little unique in some ways. 

The new guys that are with us now, I think they're still getting better at that and still getting and understanding how we do that and how that's supposed to fit up. 

If one guy doesn't do it the correct way, it goes from where you can really smother them to get some leakage there, and we've had some of that leakage that we have to keep working on. We worked on it again this morning. 

I think it was some progress with that, but also not quite there yet. Every week we have to keep getting better. We talk about take-aways, tackling, and effort. The effort was phenomenal. 

It was the take-aways didn't come, and that's a big negative. We had one that we lost because of the penalty, which would have been a huge one, but didn't get the take-aways. I just didn't think we had that same edge about us mentally that allows us to be a step ahead of some things. 

We have to be that way, and that's where I was disappointed in that and told the guys that, and we pointed them out. As a matter of fact, we showed clips. This is what we have to be able to address and fix and clean up. Then we went out and did it on the field today to correct some of the things, the mistakes that we made, and don't expect those to happen again. 

But progress, without question. Just don't like giving up those -- those last two touchdowns, to me we should have shut them out the second half. That was my whole goal coming out at halftime, and that's why I wasn't happy. Still not.”

On Walt Bell’s Attitude Helping the Offense Find an Identity:

“I think the thing that really sticks out to me about what he brings is just there's a lot of confidence that he has in what he is doing and understands the system, the adjustments, the things that you can anticipate that people are going to try to do to you. 

There's just belief. It's core confidence. That's probably the key phrase is core confidence in what you are doing, in your system and the way you decide to attack things. That rubs off on the coaches. That rubs off on the players. It rubs off on everybody in the program. 

I just know that there has to be that belief that that individual is going to be able to put us in a position. Now, players have to make those plays. I felt like we had some previous week just go to the other side of the football. You say, Hey, you've made some good calls. No, the guys made good plays. If they don't execute the calls, it really doesn't matter, right? We didn't execute some calls that should have been, I thought, good plays on Saturday night and ended up in some scores. The opposite happened a week ago. 

Same on offense. The guys have got to execute. When they believe that you are going to put them in the right spot, then it creates a whole level of confidence that they know, hey, if I just do what he tells me to do and I play really hard, then goods things are going to happen. 

I think he brings that to our guys. Part of that is just having answers for things. Not necessarily verbal, but schematic. I think he brings that. 

I feel like that was a quality that stuck out to me going against him. I think I said this before. I know I have, but when you defend somebody as a coordinator and you study them and you call plays against them during the games, it gives you a chance to see a lot. You also see a history, a pattern, a style of certain things. 

That to me is what stuck out about him even though I didn't know him really personally before the whole process started to be able to get him to meet with us, but at the same time I knew him as a play caller and what he was able to do with that. 

It's like everything else. We have to continue to grow each week, and our offense has to continue to get better. We have to continue to be more consistent, and we have to start fast and finish strong and play consistent football from start to finish. 

We're not there yet. Haven't done it yet. Haven't played four quarters yet as a team, and that's what's going to be demanded next.”