Notes and Quotes from Tom Allen and Walt Bell's Press Conference
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Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)
Indiana head coach Tom Allen and offensive coordinator Walt Bell fielded questions from the media on Wednesday ahead of the Hoosiers first fall scrimmage on Saturday.
Notes
Cam Camper recovery- “We're going through and based on workload and everything that we monitor for him. We had times where he had to try to, you know, protect that little bit. But he's progressing.”
Below are the quotes on the hottest topics in fall camp.
Quotes
On the Quarterback Competition
Tom Allen
“You’ve got two guys now that are very similar. They’re both redshirts. Neither one of them really played much last year. I think they’re more at the same starting point. At the end of the day, we’re going to pick the guy that we think is going to give us the best chance to win. That’s the bottom line. You have a long season, and you have a very challenging first one. You’re going to have someone going up against one of the teams in the nation right out of the gate. We have a big scrimmage coming up this weekend that’s going to be important, it’ll be the most amount of game-like reps in one setting that we’ve had yet. Really looking forward to seeing that and seeing how they perform in those situations.”
Walt Bell
"You try to take a whole calendar year [view] - 365 days - because we had our pre-spring installation, spring ball, OTAs in the summer, whatever the NCAA allows us to do in the summer, we've done that, and those kids have done a great job preparing themselves for now. Much further past what you would consider the ABCs [of the system]. Now we are on to some DEFs and teaching guys how to think and help themselves in pass protection. Both of them have done a great job, both are really physically talented, and in these first six days have had some really good moments, some really special moments, some average moments and below average moments. Two young guys that have a lot of physical talent that are competing really well.”
On the Progression of the Offense
Tom Allen
“Obviously, offense is a little different than defense, with the installation usually the defense is ahead right out of the gate because you can fly around, play hard and disrupt everything and things can happen positively on defense in that mindset. You do all that on offense and it usually doesn’t work out as well. It’s so much timing and execution and everybody doing their job working to get the offense executed. Because of it being year two of a lot of the same concepts, that’s really been big for our guys. I think there’s a natural progression because we have enough core guys back that makes that a lot smoother. I think just knowing our guys better and being able to adapt to them and just kind of figuring out the strengths of who we are and what we’re trying to do. I do feel like we’re making a lot of progress up front with the o-line. That to me has a good feel to it right now. I thought the last couple practices have really shown that. During the team “move the ball” periods in practice we’ve been able to make some plays and show the ability to be explosive. That’s a big key for us, we’ve got to be able to do that to take the pressure off just having to be so perfect in everything so we can have 80-yard drives or create big gains in chunk plays. He (Walt Bell) and Coach (Anthony) Tucker, even though Coach Tucker is new, they have worked together for several years so that creates a good working relationship that helps them be able to be pretty smooth in that regard. So, I think our receivers are really coming together as well and starting to make plays which is good.”
Walt Bell
“It goes both ways. There are certain guys that have the physical ability that you have to get caught up to speed. Then there are guys that have been here and really just trying to find their place within the confines of the system. I wouldn't say it's hard. No matter what your plans are, you go through the first week of fall camp: we may be a little better at this than we thought, or we may not be as good at this as we thought. A lot of times, no matter who's all back. what's going on, even if they're all back, there's always things that develop through the year as you build your team. Just excited about the weapons that we do have. We've got a really good group of wideouts, we feel really good about our tight end position, adding Christian Turner [to the running backs room] and you have Jaylin [Lucas] and Josh [Henderson] return with Trent Howland and David Holloman, that's a really good group of backs. Adding E.J. Williams Jr. to Cam Camper, Donaven McCulley and Andison Coby, Omar Cooper Jr. is healthy. We feel really good about our offense, it's just trying to find a way to fit them in the system and put them in a position to be the best version of themselves.”
On the Progress of Dexter Williams
Tom Allen
“He's he further along than we thought and he's further along than he thought he would be. His final checkup prior to fall camp, and that came back very positive. And so from that, that meeting that he had with his doctors, we felt like we could accelerate things for fall camp. And so he's been out there taking reps, you know, and and been been feeling pretty good.”
On if the Quarterback Competition is Becoming Clearer
Walt Bell
“I think it will start to focus itself. I don't think that we'll have a decision made. I mean, unless it's evident. But you know, for me, the number one rule of decision making is use all time a lot. You know, we got plenty of time between now and September 2. So if it's done after the first scrimmage or if it's pretty evident, good. You know if it's not good, we had a second scrimmage you know, we got a lot of time so but you know, that's typically when you start to see you know, a little bit of that separation. So, got a good scrimmage coming this Saturday, but we got another one, we're gonna have two big ones before we start getting into season preparation.”