When Spring Practice Opens March 5th, Allen Wants IU to Get Back to the Fundamentals
/Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)
Indiana head coach Tom Allen announced on Wednesday that the Hoosiers will open spring practice on March 5th. When they hit the field in what should be an extremely interesting spring sessions, the Hoosiers will be getting back to Tom Allen’s fundamentals. Tackling take-aways, effort on defense and toughness on offense.
“There's just fundamental things we know we need to get better at.” Allen said Wednesday. “There's no question, I talk about running the football better. To me that's a big focus, and the fundamentals of that, being able to increase our ability to be effective in that way. Right now to me it's throwing the football better. We've been a team that's thrown the ball well the last several years, and that did not take place last year.”
The Hoosiers are coming off a 2-10 season where nothing went right and head into spring ball with plenty of changes. IU will have new coordinators on both sides of the ball, a new defensive line coach, a new running backs coach and 19 new players (transfers and freshmen) in for spring practice.
“Those are two key base things that we have to be able to do with new receivers, new running backs and continue to build and develop our offensive line to me is going to be huge for us.” Allen explained. “Defensively, we went from being the number one team in the Big Ten taking the ball away in 2020, to the worst team in the Big Ten at taking the ball away, which is inexcusable. Some other categories on defense we went from the top to the bottom in one season. So, that's things that we're going to be addressing, without question. And to be able to reestablish some of those things.”
All eyes will be on several positions, most notably the offensive line that was under fire all of last season and offensive line coach Darren Hiller who survived the off-season pruning.
“I want to see us have up front.” Allen said. “To me is going to be a huge emphasis and develop the fundamentals be able to do the things we have to do to be able to run the ball effectively, blocking on the front and perimeter, and being able to do a great job of implementing new things schematically.”
Usually spring practice is brushed aside, especially after a team goes 2-10, but for the Hoosiers who were 14-7 in the two seasons prior to 2021, this spring is massively important to get the program to rebound back to a bowl game.