Among World Uncertainty, Tom Allen Has a Team with Heightened Expectations

Written By: Nate Comp (@NathanComp1)

Tom Allen said it himself. In all his years coaching, there’s never been an offseason quite like this one.

A spring that started with his players leaving campus after only four practices due to the global coronavirus pandemic has turned to a summer in which United States racial injustices are being protested across 14 countries and all 50 states. His players are scared, hurt, and away from the family atmosphere that Allen has worked so hard to create.

“I talked to a parent yesterday, the mom was just like 'I just want to get him with you guys again. I know once he's back with you guys everything is going to be okay,’” Allen recalled via teleconference.

But amid all this uncertainty, Coach Allen finds himself with an exciting opportunity in front of him: a 2020 roster that oozes potential. Fresh off a January bowl game and an eight-win season, on June 8th Allen will be welcoming back to Bloomington a more mature, experienced, and athletic depth chart than any prior season.

“There's no question we have a lot of players back on this football team from last year that have played football at a high level. I expect our football team to be ready to play their best football.”

Allen acknowledged that there have been more important obstacles in the world to tackle at the moment, but when transitioning to his discussion of the upcoming season he made it obvious that this hasn’t slowed his planning for how to tackle this modified offseason.

“I would say first of all, there's so many things going on right now that are outside of football…so you're trying to focus on things in a manageable mindset way. For me it's like okay, let's get our team back together and let's start getting better. It's a process-driven approach. I think with all that being said, it’s all the more reason to focus on the things we can control.”

With each day brining a new level of uncertainty for how things will actually look when his team kicks off the season against Wisconsin in September, Allen and his staff are focused on managing expectations one step at a time, starting with the pieces of information that are known.

“We're going to focus on what we know. What we know is we're ready for our players to come back on June 8. That's the focus. That's the mindset right now. There's a lot of unknowns what it's going to look like in July. No one has the answer to that.”

“Let's start making sure we're taking the next step as a program and to me the focus is on us physically getting ourselves in the kind of condition that we need to be in to be able to have the season we want to have.”

The definition of the season that they want to have will look much different than it did just one year ago. A bowl was the ultimate goal for the 2019 Hoosiers, but after exceeding these expectations the standard will be raised much higher in 2020.

“We're not going to shy away from expectations. We're excited about the season. Things are a lot different now than they were a few months ago.”

For now, the clock is ticking until the first phase of players can return to campus.

“Just anxious to get our players back, get back to work and continue to work through the challenges we're facing right now.”