Notes and Quotes From Tom Allen's Media Monday

Written By Lauralys Shallow

Tom Allen spoke to the media earlier today, discussing last week’s loss to Michigan State and this week’s contest against Rutgers.

Players of the game:

Offense: Whop Philyor

Defense: Jonathan Crawford

Special teams: Logan Justus

Quotes From Tom Allen

On Michigan State loss:

“I'm disappointed in the outcome from Saturday, but encouraged by the fight of our team and the character they showed to be able to stay together and give us an opportunity in the fourth quarter, to be able to score 14 points and cut the lead to seven with three minutes to go, but then back to one of the points of emphasis and focus, which is to finish, and defensively did a lot of good things throughout the game, but didn't finish out the half, didn't finish out the game there. . .” 

On Rutgers matchup:

“Really talented young quarterback that as a true freshman always has ups and downs in that area, but can really throw it and does all the things that you want in regards to a guy at that position. Talented running backs. I know they haven't played the way that they want to, but the bottom line is that we will have to be prepared for a tough battle. We went there two years ago, my first year here, and were not sharp, and that is a vivid memory in my mind of how we played in that game as a team.”

On Luke Timion, Whop Philyor and Cam Jones injury status:

“Whop was hobbled a bit as you could tell, but he's a tough nut and fought through it, so hopefully we'll continue to get him better. But he made plays and had to kind of keep him going back and getting some treatment and getting squared away. But he wanted to stay in there, and he was able to obviously stay in there, and I think he needs to continue to work to get better.”

“In regards to Luke, that will be a game-time decision. I don't know yet the status. He's obviously improving, and so getting closer for sure, so would love to be able to get him back, but we don't know for sure if he will be.” 

“Once again, he's (Jones) on our list of game-time decisions. We won't know until later in the week. Definitely do not know right now if he'll be available.”

On failure to execute in the run game against Michigan State: 

“They are really good in the box. They're hard to move because they're so physically strong. They're so well-coached, and they use their hands well. But we had some errors. We had some technical scheme -- not executing it right, and then also them just disrupting, you know, and that's why that part of the game was so huge. It's hard to get things going when the line doesn't hold up, and it's hard to stop somebody if you can't do it on either side.”

On the Marcelino Ball targeting play as a teaching moment for his defense:

“Number one, we say never lead with your head, ever. Don't led with your head. If you put your head down, you put yourself in position to be called for that. And number two, you've got to understand it's a quarterback. It's a different position. They're going to treat that guy different, and when he slides, he's to be protected, and he should be. And so you have to -- if you don't lower your head, you have the ability to try and avoid the contact to his head, and that's what you're trying to do.”

“And I thought Marcelino handled it like a man. He was torn because he thought he let his team down by not being in there, but he realized, he said, Coach, I understand, and I'll make sure I get these other guys ready for next week first half, and I'll be ready to go in the second half. It was just a teachable moment for our whole team on how you handle those kind of situations on the field.” 

On the defensive misalignment on the jet sweep play that resulted in a 75-yard touchdown for Michigan State:

“. . . we were down to our third string guy that didn't get a lot of reps at that, unfortunately, but as a matter of fact I used that as a teachable time for our team in this morning's team meeting to say, hey, we got down to All-Star third strong guy was on the field at a critical time to go win the game, give us a chance to go win the game. That just tells me you'd better be ready. If you're a third-string guy and you think you may never see the field and you're not preparing the way you're supposed to prepare, you'd better, because you may be in there because that circumstance happened to us during the game.” 

On the Michigan State fake field goal touchdown:

“Yeah, and the thing that really is frustrating is we called a call for that purpose. We thought they were going to fake it. And so didn't execute it. That's really -- that gets you. If you get caught off guard, hey, they got us, but they didn't, because we studied them. As a matter of fact, we had extra time we spent in our meetings the day of because they had had a history of doing that in other games and even years in the past. We'd go back and show video clips of several years ago. They did one against Notre Dame in overtime; showed that exact clip. Anyways, so we made a call for that purpose and didn't execute it. So that's really frustrating.”

On Penix playing or redshirting:

“If it continues to be the case where he doesn't play enough and you have a chance to redshirt him, I think you have to use that as a thought. But right now when you're the backup quarterback, chances of that guy playing is pretty high. And so -- but that final decision has not been made yet, no. Obviously you've got two more games left to work with, and we'll see how that plays itself out.”