Allen Has His Hoosiers Focusing on Three Things as Spring Practice Starts

Tom Allen looks to build on an 8-5 2019 season Image: Sammy Jacobs Hoosier Huddle

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

The Indiana Hoosiers football team kicked off spring practice on Saturday and head coach Tom Allen is looking for three things from his squad. The first is effort, the second is attention to detail and finally body language and eye contact.

Allen stated at his press conference Friday afternoon that, “we have a much more mature team than we've had the last couple years and a lot of guys returning, and so to me, as I share with our staff, just the focus on effort is going to be paramount. You always talk about that, it's always a big deal, man, I'm going to be all over that in every phase, every drill, everything we do, just to elevate the ultimate performance, just because of the competition that we have and the depth that we have. That's going to separate guys.”

The Hoosiers will have nine new scholarship players in camp and most of them are at positions where if they prove themselves well during drills, can earn a spot in the rotation, or at least be in the discussion when the Hoosiers start fall camp in August.

The Hoosiers fell two points shy of a Taxslayer Gator Bowl win over Tennessee. It was a game where one more score, stop or special teams play would have given the Hoosiers the win. “We've spent this off-season talking about one more,” Allen said, “that's been our -- just the focus of after the bowl game and just coming up one short in that game. Just need one more stop, one more 1st down, one more a lot of things, one more kick, one more point at the end. So just the attention to detail. Once again, you've got a veteran group of guys, a lot more of those than we've had, guys that have played, guys that have been here, and just almost an obsession as a coaching staff with the details. That will be felt by our guys and our leadership guys to be able to embrace that.”

The details of games have held Indiana’s football team back for decades. Spring practice is the perfect time to iron out the wrinkles of this team which still has a ton of youth to it.

Over the past few weeks, one of the biggest questions surrounding Indiana football has been ‘buy in’. The Hoosiers have had four key players hit the transfer portal since the bowl loss, running back Sampson James pulled his name out of the portal Friday and will return to IU, they have lost Mark Hagen to Texas and most of the strength and conditioning staff to Alabama. All of these events has the fan base raising questions. Any educator or coach knows when their group is bought in. Students and players have their eyes locked on the coach or teacher and there is an extra bounce to people’s steps.

“Number three is body language and eye contact,” Allen emphasized, “that's something I'm really going to emphasize with our guys, once again, just trying to get them to a whole 'nother level. These are all things that you naturally want, but just an extra emphasis on the body language that we have during the game, how we respond to adversity, just the eye contact with your coaches when they're correcting you. The essence of coaching is the correction of errors, and so how you do that is critical. And I want eye contact from our players with our coaches. Once again, just a heightened sense of the little things, to be able to elevate where we are and where we want to be.”

The Hoosiers opened spring practice on Saturday morning and will wrap the session up on April 17th with their annual Cream and Crimson Spring Game at 7pm in Memorial Stadium. The Hoosiers open up the 2020 season against the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, WI on Friday, September 4th.