Media Monday Notes and Quotes: Week 2 Indiana at Virginia

Rashard Fant and the Indiana Hoosiers head to Virginia for a 3:30pm kick-off on Saturday Image: Sammy Jacobs HoosierHuddle.com

Written By David Sugarman (@DavidSugarman_2)

It’s the beginning of another game week as Indiana gears up to take on Virginia. Earlier today head coach Tom Allen and offensive coordinator Mike DeBord spoke with the media. Here are the biggest takeaways from the day in today’s notes and quotes.

Notes

Players of the Week vs. Ohio State

Offensive player of the week: Simmie Cobbs

Defensive player of the week: Tegray Sccales

Special Teams: Chase Dutra

Defensive scout team player of the week: LaDamion Hunt and Andrew Stamm

Offensive scout team player of the week: Issac James and Nick Tronti

Injury News

WR Nick Westbrook is out for the year with a torn ACL

OL Brandon Knight is probable for the game at Virginia

Tom Allen

Allen officially announced that Nick Westbrook tore his ACL and will be out for the rest of the season. Despite the injury Allen did not regret using Westbrook on special teams.

“I think that's program philosophy. Did you pay attention to who blocked the punt against Florida State? Their starting tailback. And their backup was on the other side. And that's that way, every year. We talk to our guys all the time about, if they want to make an NFL roster, they better be able to play special teams if you're a wide receiver. There's a toughness to it.

I mean, you watch the play, I don't know how he got hurt. It's just one of those things where he planned it, and you know, just it happened. It could have happened when he went to block a guy on a first play of the game as a receiver.

So I'll never -- to me, that's -- we've got to have our good players play special teams. Tegray Scales is on the punt team, you know, and covering kicks. That's part of it. If you want to be a great football player, you'd better be able to play on special teams.

Now, you've got to be smart about it. He wasn't an owl four. But I believe in your coverage units, especially, you'd better have guys that you trust and they can run and make plays.”

Allen mentioned a pair of players by name on who will have to step up in Westbrook’s absence. Says Whop Philyor and Ty Fryfogle specifically will see more time going forward.

“You know, a year ago, Simmie was injured on the offense in the first play of his season and Nick on his first play on special teams. Just have to be able to -- as the guys did in the game, we expected to have him and we didn't and had to adjust.

But I think we've got a couple freshmen: Walt Filior (ph) is a young man that is a special player. Was injured right prior to fall camp so was put -- which put him behind, for sure, in learning the system, but very, very talented. So he will be in the mix to see where his preparation is.

And Ty Fryfogle is another young man that's a freshman that's going to be in the mix, as well. We have got other guys that are already on the team that we'll see how they respond.”

Allen says a defensive coach he’s studied the BYU defense a lot. UVA coach Bronco Mendenhall was the head coach at BYU from 2005-2015.

“I tell you, they do and have always done -- as a defensive coach, I've always watched Brigham Young teams play and how they play defense and they are so aggressive and well-coached, very disciplined, and very multiple in the looks that they give, especially in the back end. Just all sorts of different combinations and exotic pressures. And their head coach is a defensive coach, too, and he's the one kind of orchestrating all that.”

Allen says he was impressed by Virginia QB Kurt Benkert and discussed how they want to contain him.

“You know, he's a really good quarterback, very accurate. Big thing, you know, with quarterbacks like him, pressure is a big deal. You know, everybody's a little different at that position when they have pressure.

Also, being able to disrupt the timing of the routes. They are getting the ball out pretty quick in their system and what they do. I'm sure that will continue and that's what they are going to try to do. Just being able to disrupt timing and disrupt his rhythm is a key.”

Allen said the team will continue to use two centers for the time being with Harry Crider and Hunter Littlejohn.

Mike DeBord

DeBord says Ohio State’s depth posed big issues for IU. They played seven defensive ends and five inside guys while IU rotated just six offensive lineman.

DeBord also mentioned that the game plan called for more run plays, but there were a number of changes made to plays at the line of scrimmage.

“We had 18 plays where I actually called runs, but we have RPOs off of those. So those 18 plays we ended up throwing the ball because of the look we got. Those 18 plays we completed 11 of them and we averaged over six yards per attempt and we averaged over nine yards per completion on those 18 plays.”

When asked about Virginia, DeBord said they’re preparing for a much different type of defense.

“Different scheme. Totally different scheme than what we just saw. They’re an odd defense which means you’ll have a nose guard right over the center, you’ll have two defensive ends over  our tackles, with two outside linebackers and two inside linebackers. The front is totally different. Coverage wise very multiple. A lot more multiple than we saw last week.”

DeBord had high praise for freshman offensive lineman Harry Crider and him adjusting to the real game.

“I talked to Harry yesterday I think it was or the day before and I said, ‘What was your impression of playing?’  And he said, ‘Coach it was so much slower than practice.’ And that’s a positive.”