Tom Allen Discusses the Importance and Nature of NIL on IU Coaches Show Wednesday Night

Written by: @zachegreene

Head Coach Tom Allen joined Indiana legend Don Fischer's IU Coaches Show as usual on Wednesday night to discuss various topics. However, Allen went into an eight-minute monologue on the nature of Name, Image, and Likeness within college football landscape. He dove into the pay-for-play factor, the donors, as well as the nature of the current state of Indiana football. The big takeaway was that Allen along with his staff and players are underfunded and lack investments in the program.

“Now it’s legal to pay the players,” said Allen during the show. “It’s been in effect since July of 2021. This is the first season of guys, that it’s affected the play on the field. You have a class of guys that were either true freshman or transfers. It’s a game-changer and it’s now the way the game is played.”

The game is now a pay-for-play and has little to no regulations. You can agree to disagree with it but it is not going to change and will continue to develop.

Allen continued on and dove into how IU football lacks money and resources compared to other football programs in the Big Ten. The tone of Allen came off as very frustrated and reasonably so.

“Ryan Day was very clear at Big Ten Media Day that he needed $13 million to keep his team intact. That got a lot of people’s attention but that’s the reality. Coach Harbaugh and Coach Franklin is like that’s where we would want to be and then there’s everybody else and they’re like we’d like to have half of that.”

Allen spoke just how broke the Football program is at the moment without the $1 million match donation to the Hoosiers For Good and Hoosiers Connect collectives that was announced Monday.

“You are playing against teams with really big budgets. $13 million is a lot. We have like 1% of that right now.”

“Bottom line is that when the season started, we had maybe eight players that were $150,000 and that was it. I’m being honest and truthful. That’s how the game is played. And if you’re not in the game and you're not on the train you are going to get left out and run over.”

It is clear that this Indiana football program is getting run over. Today’s landscape of college football is much different than it was two years ago or even a year ago. If this IU Football program wants to be back in the pack of the Big Ten, it is going to take investments.

“Nice to meet you coach, but I am going to go somewhere else and get my money,” said Allen when he was talking about recruiting players. Meaning some players are going to go to a school where they can get the most money.

An investment in the program as a whole is needed, but also investment in the players because they are getting paid.

“We got to get behind this. We got a good infrastructure. We got to give to them and it’s a big part of this. If you are not part of the variable, you are out on those guys. We saw it with this last class.”

The hesitation to invest in NIL, especially on the football side of things, runs deep. IU fans have been burned before during the Phil Dickens’ Era when the Hoosier football program was turned in for paying players and the NCAA hit the school with an all sports probation. It was damaging, it cost programs many things from coaches to NCAA titles and everything in between.

However, this is a different era. The NIL landscape is not what people want, but it is what it is right now and IU has to play the game. Allen made that clear on Wednesday night.