Hoosiers First Scrimmage Shows Positives and Areas of Needs

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

The Indiana Hoosiers held their first scrimmage of Fall Camp of Friday morning. While the media could not watch, head coach Tom Allen gave a window into what he calls ‘Pre-season Game One’.

“I thought today was a really good scrimmage.” Allen said to open his press conference. “A lot of guys got a lot of good reps. I thought it was competitive back-and-forth and it came down to the final snap: fourth-and-goal on the one [yard line]. to be able to decide the winner for that portion of it.”

With the season just 21 days away, the need to see how his players perform in game situations becomes more and more important.

“A lot of good situations and got some overtime work, got some heavy red zone work, moved the football and got our special teams worked on in a lot of situations.” Allen explained. “So, very positive, but a lot to work on. We haven't watched the film yet, so we will know what that looks like when I get a chance to grad [the film] here in a little bit, but thought it was a very good day for the Hoosiers.”

The Hoosiers need to fix just about everything about their team from 2021, but Allen and his staff now have a jumping off point.

Allen said they “just wanted to be able to move the football efficiently, get the ball in the end zone and we have emphasized creating more explosive plays. That is obviously a tough dynamic, because we are trying to not allow those on defense, which is the natural tension you have there. Trying to be able to create those and not have to drive 10, 11, 12-play drives to get down the field.”

So how did the Hoosiers do at that?

“That was the emphasis and we had several of those today and that was good.” Allen said. “Then, continue to master the offense and play with confidence. The whole objective [of today's scrimmage] was coaches off the field in the scrimmage, but don't even yell, because [the natural tendency for a coach is to correct someone], but don't say anything to them and make them make the checks and adjustments. That way, we know exactly where we are at.”

It was not all good things for the Hoosiers, however. Like all teams in their first scrimmage, mistakes were made.

“We did have some holding penalties, and we talked that through out there on the field, from a technical perspective. I got to make sure we eliminate those. We had a couple illegal procedures we need to eliminate, had one bad snap over the head in the red zone, which is costly, and we can't have those. We haven't really had those with our first group, so that was the first one, I think, the entire spring we have with the one's. That hasn't been an issue, but we have to make sure it's not an issue.” Allen said.

The Hoosiers will have two more '“Pre-season Games'“ before opening the season against Illinois on September 2nd in Bloomington.