Notes and Quotes From Tom Allen's Media Monday: Week Nine

Image: Sammy Jacobs Hoosier Huddle

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Tom Allen took to the podium for Media Monday following Indiana’s 34-28 win over Maryland. Allen touched the Maryland win, the upcoming game at Nebraska and gave an injury update.

Notes:

- Players of the Week: Offense: Peyton Ramsey, Defense: Juwan Burgess and Reese Taylor, Special Teams: Logan Justus, Scout Team: Christian Love, Da’Shaun Brown, Tim Weaver and Joseph Daniels

- Injury Updates:

- Quarterback Michael Penix will be a game-time decision with an undisclosed injury. --- - “Right now do not know what his status will be. It will be a game-time decision. But, so the plan will be to prepare like we have every single week, to be able to have Peyton ready to roll, and he'll have a great week of practice and just like he did last week. And Jack will be ready as well. So those guys in that room will be doing their best to prepare, and Michael as well, and we'll do everything we can to get him back if at all possible. But that's, that remains to be seen.

- OL Hunter Littlejohn is expected to be back.

- Allen said he does “expect to get Hunter back this week. He warmed up and we went through it and had the discussion about it, possibly, he probably could have gone but hadn't got a lot of reps, and so we felt if we could just hold him for one more week and be able to still get what we want, then I think it served itself well there because now he's, should be fully recovered here by time we get to Saturday, he'll be practicing with us this week and got off to a good start today. So should get him back and get those guys back to their normal spots.”

Tom Allen Quotes:

Opening Statement:

“Just had a good morning with our team and really proud of the way they performed on Saturday. I thought it was just a great way to finish, to find a way to win an important road game in conference play. Any time you go on the road it's just difficult.
So we didn't play our best, but I thought we did a lot of good things, a lot of things to build off of for sure. But just the ability to finish, to have our defense on the field. As I said earlier, to be able to be the reason why the game closed the way it did, kind of being put back out there twice, but then challenged our offense about finishing. We get that first fumble that Burgess creates and get the ball in great position and you want to go in there and score a touchdown. Still defense had to come out and still had to finish.
But bottom line is it was a complete team effort. Our guys, had some guys dinged up and O line was shuffled around a little bit but still was able to rush for almost 200 yards and Stevie went over a hundred. Six yards a carry for him and I thought he ran really, really hard and protected the football. Did a lot of great things.
Played two different quarterback backs, obviously, and both of them played well. And Peyton being able to throw for almost 200 yards and being 20-27 and just being really sharp and being prepared to do what he did was very encouraging.
Just even in the special teams they had a really, really good return game I was very concerned about. And being able to contain him I thought was critical. And then had zero punt return yards. So just a lot of positives. Had zero penalties on special teams, which has been a big focus. So those are things that we have told our team that that's how you have to function to win on the road and to be able to be play a clean game in those areas. And just thought our coaching staff made some good adjustments at halftime defensively. Our defense gave up two big plays throughout the game that were costly. But in the second half really, really shut them down and made some good adjustments at halftime. So appreciate the work that our defensive staff, Coach Wommack's leadership there. And then Coach DeBoer offensively come up with a good plan, get off to a fast start. Two touchdowns the first two drives and just being able to keep the touchdown the pressure on -- touchdown before half was huge be. Great momentum. Awesome play by Nick Westbrook. He had six catches and played really, really well.
So proud of our guys. But really challenged them and we went through the film and to focus on the areas that we have to really hone in on to continue to grow as a football team. But any time you can go on the road and get that kind of win, the way that it happened, it helps your team grow and develop the belief and confidence in what we're doing.

On the Performance of the Offensive Line:

“that's a tribute to them and to Coach Hiller and the job that he does. And I thought those three guys you mentioned, we obviously had three different positions there affected by having Harry move to center and then moving Simon to left guard and then Mackenzie playing right. So just thought Matthew continues to progress. Boy, he really, all those big runs that Stevie was having there in the second half and was him just caving in the defensive line and just creating a lot of movement. And I thought our tight ends blocked well on several of those also. But Harry did a great job snapping the football. That's a dynamic that you forget about until you get a bad snap. So he did a great job with the snaps. Just he's a good center, he really is. He's got a good base to him, he's strong, he's smart. So hadn't had a lot of reps there but I will say this, we kind of probably got into, we were two full weeks into the camp and I just said, okay, guys, it's time for us to shuffle the O line and let's get Harry at center and let's get guys shuffled around a little bit, play some different spots, and we even played Coy at guard. Just tried to get guys different. We did it for several practices in a row and I think that really paid off for us this past game. Just because knowing, looking forward, that you just never know what may happen to the offensive line. And having guys that can play multiple spots helps them for their future because that's what the NFL is looking for, are guys that have versatility to play multiple positions because of the number of linemen they have on their roster and how many they carry to a game each week. So that's a big selling point for our guys is in their development and what they want for their future.
So but Coach Hiller did a great job of that. Really, really proud of our O line, they got to continue to keep getting better. But I feel like, expect to get Hunter back this week. He warmed up and we went through it and had the discussion about it, possibly, he probably could have gone but hadn't got a lot of reps, and so we felt if we could just hold him for one more week and be able to still get what we want, then I think it served itself well there because now he's, should be fully recovered here by time we get to Saturday, he'll be practicing with us this week and got off to a good start today. So should get him back and get those guys back to their normal spots.”

On Reese Taylor’s Game Sealing Interception:

“I gave him a huge hug, man, I just so proud of him. He's such a great person, works so hard. And I know he's been frustrated because of the injuries and hasn't been out there like he wanted to be because of that. But now he's gotten back and showed up on special teams last week, and now on defense. And but that's the ball savviness that he has and just being a former offensive player, specifically a quarterback and being able to finish the play. It's probably a tougher catch than it looks, but it was overthrown, but it was overthrown because of the rover doing his job and taking away that seam route by the vertical No. 2. And he's an overlap player in that coverage and that's what he did, exactly what he was supposed to do. So you get rewarded for being in the right place at the right time. But he's an excellent football player and one of our best athletes without question. So I just see him continuing to grow in his performance and execution and just being comfortable out there at corner. But he's one of our elite players in my mind in terms of quickness and change of direction and he's got a toughness to him, he'll tackle even though he's not the biggest guy. But just a really, really good football player. So awesome for him, so proud of him and happy for him to have that opportunity and he came through for his team. It was awesome.”

On the Defensive Adjustments that were made against Maryland:

“I think that defense football, to me, is so dependent upon three key variables. And it all starts with we always take takeaways, tackling effort. Those are huge and those are foundational things that we, that I preach, we say, hey, we install those three things every single day, and we do, we make a huge deal about them. But it really all starts with run fits because if you don't stop the run, then everything else just kind of falls apart from there because then they got, they can do two things to you. They can run it or they can throw it, because that obviously sets the other one up. So it's those run fits. It's being able to be confident in those fits, to be able to -- because that's affects your tackling. If your spacing is not right then you get out of position and you miss tackles. And it all just kind of crumbles from there.
So to me it was being able to just kind of go back to making sure we're being simple enough to get the run fits right, to make sure that we're not, the layers aren't out of whack and the spacing is not out of whack. And our guys are really more of a compressed contested-type mindset that I really believe in to be able to take away those windows and the easy throws and the access throws and make them earn every little thing that they get. I believe in that, I think it's hard to drive the ball up and down the field by having to snap it over and over and over again. So you got to eliminate those big plays by swarming the ball. It's the effort that you get to the ball that the gang tackling. And so all those things just kind of go -- and our kids, man they played so hard. And we usually play really hard, that's one of our, I think one of our biggest things that we're known as when you watch us play and I want that to always be the case. A lot of reasons for that. But defensively it's just, it all starts with those fits and working on those and even how we practice and modifying some of that to try and get a better look, we made changes with that. Because sometimes when you have your scout teams they don't always, especially up front it's hard to simulate a full set of Big Ten offensive linemen. It's almost impossible to do that with that group. So therefore, sometimes it can get skewed when you practice, to what the linebackers are seeing because by the time they get to them, it's already -- especially in the run game. So we had to make some changes on how we approach that, just to get a cleaner, better look for our defense so we can get the fits right and everybody's, from a technical perspective, where they're supposed to be. So it's kind of been almost a back to basics approach to that and simplifying some things, throwing some stuff out and adding a couple little things here and there that I felt like we needed to do. And just working with Coach Wommack and just getting it right, and just making sure because we do still have a lot of guys that don't have a ton of reps. And so just making sure that we execute at those critical times. So that to me is where I think was the biggest thing. And even in the second half we did some, they were doing a lot of things that we were a little bit unique and different than we'll be playing for and so we had to be able to adjust to that.
But I just think that's where, because that gives our guys a lot of confidence when they know where they're supposed to be, they're playing faster. A guy like Burgess, he just continues to play faster and faster and more confidently. And then we had several effort plays where we showed our team this morning about guys just running things down from the back side and getting a bunch of guys around the ball. Because when you're playing against some of these elite guys it's hard for the first guy to get him on the ground. And so he make that is one guy miss with a proper angle then the second guys are going to be there to finish him off.
So that to me is really kind of in a nutshell what we tried to emphasize and the guys just continued to communicate and execute, communicate and execute, as they're playing their tails off. So that's really our formula on defense.”

On being 5-2 and thinking about being a win shy of bowl eligibility:

“Well, here's how I look at this. So we're 5-2, after playing seven games. It's a little bit different dynamic than we have been in the last two years. We kind of, it was more the end of the season where this situation occurred. And so to me, you talk to any of our players, there's no mention of winning six. I mean it's, they understand and we talked about this this morning, that this is the biggest game of the season because it's our next game. Yeah, it's, obviously you win the next game, you win your sixth game and we understand what all that means. But that is, to me the objective is for us to be at our very best and play our best football in Lincoln Nebraska on Saturday. And if we continue to focus like that then it takes care of itself. So for me, at the beginning of the season we set a goal as a team that we want to win our bowl game, not just get to a bowl game, we want to win our bowl game. That was one of the goals that we set out and the players came up with that goal.
So obviously there's a lot of things that, there's no picking numbers here. We want to be our very, very best and we believe if we keep getting better every single week and we focus on one thing at a time, which right now it's completely on Nebraska, and we give them our very, very best effort, focus during the week, we play our best game of the season on Saturday, then we'll like the outcome. And then when that's done you go work on the next one. And that's been our approach all season long and that's not going to change.
But at the same time, I get it, there will be, we'll be asked about it, we talked about it this morning in that regard. But it's about having a focus, that's the mental toughness it takes to be great in our program, and to me I want it to be a point where that's just part of the expectation and that's what I want. And so I understand it, I understand where we are, what's in front of us, and so do our players. They're excited about the opportunity to go and play together again as a football team on the road. And that's the whole objective is to be able to be at our best on Saturday.”