One-on-One with Indiana Head Coach Tom Allen (Part I: Overall Program Health)

Tom Allen leads his team onto the field against Purdue Image: Sammy Jacobs Hoosier Huddle

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Earlier this month Indiana football head coach Tom Allen invited me to his office for a one-on-one interview. I broke this interview up into four sections, the first of which covers general questions about the overall health of the Indiana football program ranging from long-term goals to non-conference scheduling. I would like to thank Coach Allen and Indiana SID Jeff Keag for talking the time out of the busy “off-season” to speak with Hoosier Huddle.

On his Five Year Plan and goal setting

“You know to me, a lot of it has to depend on where you are at as a program and what you’re trying to do. For me, this is going into year three. It’s probably taken, I knew it would take some time to kind of get the staff structured in a way you want. In terms of, the staffing part of it, obviously on-the-field coaches is set, but in terms of the personnel off the field. Recruiting is kind of the biggest thing. That was, when I first took over, you obviously have goals you want and you try not to be too specific maybe necessarily on the field things, you have broader goals, but at the same time you need to know where you want to be. The bottom line is we want to win the Big Ten. It doesn’t happen overnight. That’s a long-term goal that we are working towards and obviously step number one for us is to get to a bowl game and win our bowl game. That is just kind of what you set down as what you want to accomplish.

Well, those are great. But how do you get to that point? To me, it’s always about recruiting. We had to change our roster. We had to get more depth, we  had to get big, strong guys upfront and more speed on the perimeter. That kind of just was the emphasis. So to me, getting recruiting right was big. We have kind of gone through and it’s taken a couple different years to get to the point where you have the personnel in those positions to where you feel like we’re now able to do what I want to do and when families come on campus this is the kind of experience I want them to have. To me, that is kind of where it started. So it has taken to that point. Then in that window of time, everybody in the world of sports, no one is as patient as you wish they were and I am not either. We want it to happen and happen right now.

So for me, the five-year goal, the five-year range, this is going into year three. The next step is to get to a bowl game and win the bowl game and after that it is about every single year I want to be a relevant team in this conference. I want to be a team that is competing to win our division and ultimately go play in Indianapolis to go to the Rose Bowl. Those are things that you are stepping towards and I see other programs doing the same things. Those programs that are doing things that we want to be doing, it’s taken time to get there. So to me, that is kind of the way I look at it. I don’t necessarily put a year on every single one of those things, but you know you look at our roster, you look at our guys and you think about year five after we have taken over, that is going to be a big chunk of your guys. That is your team, that is the way you mold it, that’s the way you build it, that’s the way you use guys you’ve developed and recruited and sat in their living room and so to me that’s the group, we have our current guys when they mature and are older that’s when that is going to be that type of timing of it all. Then you just start, when that all happens, it’s about continuing to develop, to recruit and just keep stacking classes and just keep growing and developing expectations about how you are going to play and what you are going to do and the results that you want.”

On what geographical areas he would like recruiting to pick up in

“We actually targeted Ohio. We feel like we haven’t done as good lately as I think we need to and so we put an emphasis back on it in this current class. Just feel like it’s, obviously it’s very close. We have always had guys from there, but I didn’t think we got enough in the previous class. Also we have tried to expand into Tennessee and be more aggressive in both the Nashville area and the Memphis area just because we felt those were close and we were not taking full advantage of them. Those kind of stick out and maybe South Georgia. We have always focused on Atlanta, but South Georgia is kind of one where they had a few guys out of and had some success there. Those are the ones we have kind of talked about targeting as a staff.”

On Fred Glass and the Athletic Department’s support of the program

“Step number one has just been support. It probably goes before (offensive coordinator) Kalen (DeBoer), you think about our strength staff and others tried to come and encourage them to go somewhere else and to restructure their contracts and then going out and getting Kalen and giving us the opportunity for us to get the guy that we wanted and what that meant financially and contractually. The new locker room, the Tallen center as we call it, is an absolute game changer for us. We have talked about it and knew it was going to happen it was just getting it done and it is going to be finished here this fall. So, it’s just all that goes into the way the entrance is going to be redone and the hallways, they’re working on the hallway right now, just the change to create a football feel to everything. When you come in from the North End Zone and both when you go to the left to the team room and to the right all the way down to the locker room. That’s a major change and commitment to making football a priority, To me, it’s not just talking about it, it’s physically doing it and that is where I appreciate that things that we have talked about, he’s listened and responded and he’s all in with it and I appreciate that. It all starts with leadership with him and he has a vision of what he wants us to be and football is getting the emphasis with resources and physical backing that you need to be successful.”

On talking about what was at stake after the Minnesota loss

“I think that, for me, every team is a little different and I think we were so young that I don’t think there was enough of a sense of urgency from our guys. To me, I felt like we let a great opportunity slip away from us at Minnesota. Nothing to take away from them, they obviously proved to be a good football team the way that they finished and they’re good at home. It’s a tough place to play on a Friday night, but still just felt like we let an opportunity slip away. So, I knew our margin for error was very small after that and just wanted to be very specific of a young team that I didn’t think had a lot of strong verbal leadership that I needed to change the tone of how we were going to approach it and how we were going to address it and what we were going to talk about and became very upfront about what our objective was and what was at stake and what we needed to do. The guys responded positively leading up to and we just didn’t finish.”

Are you confident going into this year telling your team what’s at stake?

“Yeah, a little more specific. We had our players go through this offseason and we had our leadership council come up with three season goals. I won’t share what those are, but the three season goals and they’re very specific about what we want to accomplish. They were from the players, that’s what they came up with and I was 100-percent in agreement. We are going to be more aggressive with it. Just to say that our guys, from the very beginning to understand what our objective is, and you always have different levels of guys, where they are at on that goal mindset, but to me it’s about raising expectations. We just have to live up to what I believe we are setting ourselves up for which is to take this program forward.”

On the current Hoosier walk-on program and getting players from other colleges to walk-on at IU

“First of all, we’ve really tried since I have taken over to really, aggressively recruit walk-ons. They give you a ton of value. You have to have them for a lot of different reasons, but we have had a good success here with guys coming in and having the chance to play and being a positive contributor on game day as well. We have a long history of that, so I think we have, and Gavin Everett is one of the more recent guys that has come here and earned a scholarship. Usually specialists are kind of the ones where that is kind of their deal, but it has expanded out to other positions, there are many guys in the past who have done that. I just think you kind of find the guy that wants to go to school here. That’s really number one, because obviously we are not paying for their way initially. So, they have to want to be here for it to work out financially. Then you find guys and you make your phone calls and we knew about Connor (Schneider) just through his dad played here and really wanted to come here out of high school. He went the MAC route first, but he was a guy that has shown a lot of promise in the spring. Cam (Wilson) is really a very good athlete. I know his high school coach and he came highly recommended to us and he went to Illinois State and it didn’t work out there so the more through the high school coaches I know well enough, they’ll often give you recommendation of a guy. I know Connor’s high school coach extremely well and I think things like that have helped and then trying to get some high school guys to come in here and take advantage of an opportunity. Just signed a couple, well not signed, but gave them an opportunity, a couple junior college guys from Chicago that I think can come in and give us depth and help us. Those guys are important. We have to have them as part of our team and I think that some of those guys will end up playing on Saturdays.”

On Non-Conference Scheduling Philosophy

“Starting probably 2025 and beyond, there are a few of those that are under contract or whatever, several of those are not yet. So, I’ll get a list of options and go from there and try and evaluate that. To me, it’s really, we play such a rigorous conference schedule and by playing the nine games per our conference rule and the division that we are in, you’re going to get a lot that you want in terms of high-level competition. To me, it’s about getting a good, I like going to Florida to play FIU because we recruit so heavily down there. We had a ton of fans and it gave a chance for a lot of our player’s parents to come and watch their kids play right out of the gate. So that was really important to us. Then playing some teams that are locally close here. I think that’s important. To me, philosophically, you’re trying to help your program grow and develop and part of that is being able to be successful and get to the point where we are. To me, it is a situation where you have to be smart in some of those decisions. There are certain games that are part of the conference rules, we are going to have a Power Five team that we are going to play outside of our conference. Then there are other conferences we matchup with a d there’s some different stipulations whether we play an FCS school or or not. To me, it’s about opportunities for our guys, I am not trying to create the highest ranked, most difficult schedule in the country. That wouldn’t necessarily be my objective, but at the same time I think you get to the point, we played a good Virginia team the last two years in a row that could have easily beaten us. Wake Forest did my first year here, playing an ACC opponent. I like to be able to play another Power Five. I think that’s good and get a chance for our guys to travel a little bit and see different places, but you want it to be a competitive opportunity and be able to get a chance to be successful.”