Tom Allen Media Monday Notes and Quotes Week 11: Illinois
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Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)
Indiana head coach Tom Allen took to the podium on Monday after the Hoosiers 20-14 win over Wisconsin and ahead of their road game against Illinois.
NOTES:
Injuries:
The following players were all ruled OUT prior to Saturday’s game. An updated availability report will be out Saturday at 10:00 am.
Noah Pierre
Jamier Johnson
Cam Camper (Out for the Season)
Players of the Week:
Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week: Aaron Casey
Offense: Brendan Sorsby
Defense: Aaron Casey
Special Teams: James Bomba and Chris Freeman
Scout Team: Ta’derius Collins, Drew Pearce, Austin Barrett, Declan McMahon, Reece Bellin, Reece Lazano
TOM ALLEN QUOTES:
Opening Statement
“Just want to begin by -- really proud of our guys, the way they battled on Saturday. Last couple weeks, been able to see some growth of the way our guys have prepared the last couple weeks and starting to play complementary football, eliminating mistakes.
Didn't have any penalties by our offense, no turnovers by our offense. Scored the opening drive of the game, which is a great tone setter.
Then defensively getting off the field on the first drive and several drives to start the game. Finally got us a takeaway on a fumble recovery. It's taken many, many games to get to that. Got two of those for the game, counting the three 4th down stops. Had five opportunities where we consider those takeaways by our guys, by our unit, so those were huge in the game.
Just feel like we secured the football on the punt returns and no penalties on special teams, just playing all three phases working together, got some good flip the field with our punter again, pinning them down inside and making them have to punt and getting points off that, and obviously at the end getting the key stop.
Aaron Casey was phenomenal, as we all saw, and the big sack he got to knock them out of field goal range, and then to be able to take the ball and get some key 1st downs and make them burn their time-outs and kick a field goal right in that area where you try to make a decision what you need to do. Trust in Chris, and he did a great, great job. Proud of our players.
We just go through and try to recognize players of the game. Brendan Sorsby on offense was our offensive player of the game. Just really proud of his development. Just showed growth, poise, toughness, made some really big throws, and had some opportunities -- we left some things out there offensively.
Didn't play consistently in the second half to where we need to be for sure. But he did a really good job of distributing the football and continuing to grow and develop.
Aaron Casey was the defensive player of the game, as you would expect with his nine tackles, four tackles for loss, two sacks, caused fumble. Just played the way I believe and know he can, and he was very motivated to -- he didn't love the way he played -- this past week was solid, but the week before that was not. He's really taken some ownership of that and just taking it personal to make sure he's playing his best football, and I thought he just did a tremendous job in every way.
Special teams players of the game, James Bomba and Chris Freeman. James did great job with our punt team, makes all the checks and calls to get everything right there I thought was excellent, and they were a big pressure team, so thought he was really huge in that.
Scouts of the week: Defensive scout, TD Collins. Ta'Derius is his birth name. We call him TD. That's his name that he goes by. Going to be a really good football player for us and excited for his development and growth. Drew Pearce does a great job for us every week in so many ways, so proud of him.
Offensively, scouts, Austin Barrett, one of our true freshmen. Really talented player who's really developing and working hard. Declan McMahon brings great energy, as well. Players love him. Just has a great personality, works really hard and helps us get better, and love having him on our team.
Then special teams scouts of the week: Reece Bellin and Reece Lozano, two guys that work extremely hard, consistently giving us great looks on special teams and also in their offensive positions.
Proud of our football team. Got to continue to get better. Got a great opportunity and challenge this week as we travel to Illinois, a team that's playing really good football, their best football of the season. Got a big win this past weekend. A big, physical football team, have the biggest back we've played against, biggest running back, very athletic quarterback, really talented receivers, and then a big, physical defense, one of the best defensive lines in the Big Ten. A team that has played well defensively.
Just a very well-coached football team in all phases. A lot of respect for Coach Bielema and the job he's doing there. We have to continue to develop and be able to build off momentum that we have from this past weekend and just keep getting better and play our best football this coming Saturday.”
On Injuries Suffered in the Wisconsin Game
“Since those guys left the game, don't know about either one of them at this point. We'll do our availability report. Don't expect any of them to be long-term situations.
But do want to announce that Cam Camper will not be returning this season. Had a procedure done over the weekend, and just to try and help him for his long-term, and excited about the procedure going well and getting him 100 percent healthy for the future, and be able to help them in that regard.
That's definitely one that we wanted to make sure we were clear on with his status. If a player is out for the rest of the season, we would say that publicly, and then if not we use the availability report to be able to allow us to announce those injuries.”
On Cam Camper
“It's the same situation. It's just kind of a chance to really kind of get it cleaned up and help him have a really, really 100 percent clean future.”
On Jordan Shaw’s Play at Husky
“I think even before the injury to Noah, he was a guy that we had just noticed in practice. You think about -- I talked about this with our team on Sunday. When you're a young player, you get your opportunities on the scout teams or on special teams, and guys are flashing and they start making plays and just the way they move and the way they finish things and how they drill and how they prepare catches coaches' eyes and we say that's your responsibility to convince your coach that you should play. We put that on them and make your coach say, man, we've got to find a way to get that guy on the field. That's kind of what started happening in practice with him.
Really has high-level coverage skills, has really elite ball skills. He's a guy that was a two-way player in high school and a return man.
Because of the situation with Noah, it allowed us to be able to kind of catapult him to a higher role probably a little faster, but he was ready when called upon. As you mentioned, he was our co-leading tackler on Saturday and was matched up with their best receiver many, many times.
So just really excited for him and his opportunity he was given, and he took full advantage of it. Came into the Penn State game a couple weeks ago and made some big plays there and showed me that he was ready to take that next step and be given some more responsibility.
Definitely put a lot on his plate pretty quickly, but he responded well. I think he'll continue to grow and develop, and he's just a tough kid. He's got a really good football IQ, and as you mentioned, we had high hopes for him, expectation for him coming out of high school, and he's proven to be a guy that's going to be a great future here.”
On EJ Williams Return to the Field
“The timing is huge, getting him back, because Cam really hasn't played a lot lately. So EJ's length and speed, he's our fastest and longest receiver combination that we have.
Really excited for him. Made some big plays for us. He's a big enough guy to break tackles and can stretch the field.
Going to need him to continue to elevate and continue to be a guy on the rise, which we're seeing right now from him, so really proud of him, and as Donaven McCulley continues to elevate his play and be a guy that we know we have to be able to count on to step up and make plays, so EJ is a guy we had high hopes for when we brought him here, and unfortunately had the injury in week one that really set him back, but he just stayed positive, stayed the course, kept training, kept working, was doing all the things he needed to do to get back, and was ready to go when he got back.
Now he's played a couple games, and each week he just gets more and more confident with Brendan and our system that we're doing here.
Big expectations for EJ in these next few weeks.”
On Developing Depth at LB with Matt Holt, Joshua Rudolph and Venson Sneed
“I'll tell you, you think about both Josh and Matt, both have multiple tackles. Josh had three really physical tackles that I thought were impressive. Matt had three tackles, didn't play a ton of snaps, but the snaps that both of them played, the numbers are going up.
You mentioned Venson Sneed. That's on purpose. I think he's a guy that has a really, really great future for us. He's young. Those are all young guys and guys that haven't played as much but also have -- just helps our older guys get some rest and also allows those younger guys to develop.
But they've earned our trust to be able to put them in there and make plays. At this stage of the season, a lot of guys are dinged up, and you've got to be able to tackle big backs each and every week. We've got another opportunity to do that this week, so we're going to need a lot of fresh bodies, and the more we can play those guys -- we made a concerted effort to play more guys on the defensive line in a smooth rotational way, and I thought that was very, very beneficial for us to finish strong in that fourth quarter, which we know we need to be able to do.
Those are guys that we have seen positive things from. I expect that to continue to grow.”
On the Offensive Line Struggles in the Second Half Against Wisconsin
“When you go back and watch it on film, we lost some one-on-ones. We had a mistake up front on one of the pressures, which really hurt us in a critical situation where we felt like we had a chance to get a big 1st down and we did not and you have to punt. That obviously changes, kills momentum at that point. Just felt like that when Kahlil went down, I think that hurt us, too. He's one of our better players.
Obviously, Josh has a chance to come in there and play, and that's the most he's played in a while. Need him to elevate and continue to get better and work through all that.
But at the same time, they made some adjustments and did some things that we've got to be able to have answers for. They have a good front seven. We knew that going in. Physical football team that makes running the ball very, very hard, and just feel like we need to do a better job of just adapting to that and taking the things that they give us.
We've got to be able to -- if they're overloading the box, we've got to be able to throw the football effectively and get that pressure off and be able to be -- continue to be aggressive and put the pressure on them vertically and on the perimeter.
Just felt like we didn't play as well. We didn't execute as well up front. Had some mistakes with our guys, and like you said, lost some one-on-one battles, and got to get better. They've made a lot of progress, done a lot of good things, but in that part of the game we needed them to step up, and that will be a continuing area of focus for us as we go into this week and play another really, really talented front that makes it hard on offenses.
But as is the case for all of our guys, we've just got to continue to evaluate, make corrections, and keep getting better.”