Tom Allen's Media Monday Notes and Quotes - Preseason Practice (9/28)
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Written by Juliet Gahan
The countdown for Indiana to take on Penn State is on. Hoosiers will face the Nittany Lions October 24th. Earlier today head coach Tom Allen gave hoosier fans an update on preseason practice.
Notes
Hoosiers have had 1,200 COVID-19 Rapid Tests and only one positive result.
Saturday the team will be in full pads for practice for the first time.
Injury News
DB Marcelino Ball tore his ACL and will be out for the season.
Tom Allen
Allen officially announced Marcelino Ball tore his ACL in practice this week. The Redshirt Senior will not play this season.
“I hate that for him. He has been such a great player for us and has really matured so much as a young man.” Said Allen. Ball will be prepping for surgery in the coming weeks.
“We wish him nothing but the very best as he will be having his surgery in the near future and begin the process of recovery for his future.” Allen said. With Ball out for the upcoming season, Allen has had to find a player to take on the Husky position.
Bryant Fitzgerald will be moving into Ball’s former position. The 6 foot 209 pound junior had 27 tackles last year at safety. In the Gator Bowl against Tennessee he matched a career high of 5 solos. He moved to the Husky position during spring practice. It looks like the Hoosiers will be in good hands with Fizgerald on the field.
Allen spoke of the need to be flexible this season.
“It is a legit concern that I think everyone is having right now in terms of how you handle the unknowns of the season, both with the normal injuries that always occur throughout a year and, obviously, the COVID situation that we are all dealing with. “ Allen said. He noted that the Offensive Line, which was a concern, is now progressing.
“We have been able to see a little more of their development, but we will know more by the end of this week once we have a couple of shell practices (helmets and shoulder pads) in and full pads on Saturday.” Allen said.
The preseason game one is this weekend and Allen wants to create a game-day feel for his players.
“I want to create as much live football as we can that we feel like our bodies and our team are ready for. I see it being a situation in which we work on moving the football down the field to start, then we will create red zone situations, coming out situations, and some scripted third-down situations where we get a chance to work on third and short, third and medium and third and long situations.” Said Allen. The preseason scrimmage will focus less on live reps, but more on situational football.
The season opener against Penn State is less than one month away. There is definitely urgency on the field.
“We have to realize what we are up against and how well we have to play to defeat a team of that caliber. I do think that is a positive, because that creates that natural sense of urgency and I do not have to work super hard to get them to understand how good of a team we are about to play.” Said Allen.
Allen has learned from watching others play in 2020
“ I think that specials teams would be the area that I point to the most. We have special team's meetings every morning to start our day. We have made it an emphasis with a lot of video clips, and we did it again this morning, of games from the previous weekend. We want to not only talk to our guys, but also give them the visual example to show them how critical it is to be so locked in to all of the things that we do from an execution standpoint, whether that is fielding punts, catching the snaps, and the attention to detail in how we communicate in the backend with the return guys, the kickoff return guys and fielding onside kicks. Showing the rules on all of that, making sure the ball goes 10 yards, when you can and cannot touch it, should you let a hot one go free for the back row, which is something that we saw on Saturday that cost a team a chance to win the game. Special teams is probably the biggest thing that we have capitalized on in some different situations. Also, clock management and going through as a staff and talking about how to manage games and how we would handle a certain situation if it happened to us. We are just trying to learn, all the time. We encourage our guys to watch as much football as they can. Once we finish practice on Saturdays and get the film broken down, we all go do the same thing. We have to capitalize and learn from watching the game being played because we are going to be in that position really soon. We are going to have to go all out against a Top-10 team in the country. We are going to have tackle, block and execute extremely well. The tackling part of it is what it is. We have not been allowed to be in pads. The entire conference is in the same rules, but we will all start being in pads on Wednesday as a collective group. We will make sure we are working on tackling as much as we possibly can without getting too many guys dinged up.”
Hoosiers will hurry to face one of the top-10 teams in the country as their season opener.