Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Indiana head coach Tom Allen took to the podium on Labor Day Monday after the Hoosiers 23-3 loss to Ohio State and ahead of IU’s Friday night matchup against Indiana State.

NOTES:

Injuries:

The following players were all ruled OUT prior to Saturday’s game. An updated availability report will be out Friday at 5pm.

5 Dexter Williams II
40 Orlando Greenlow
45 Trey Walker
60 Max Longman
98 Trey Laing

Players of the Week:

Scout Team Players of the Week

Jack Greer (Offense)
Broc Lowry (Offense)
Connor Hole (Defense)
Jeff Utzinger (Defense)
Declan McMahon (Special Teams)

TOM ALLEN QUOTES:

On Playing on Friday Night:

“ I've been pretty consistent from the very beginning. And there's no question that I'm going to keep saying it over and over again. But we can't have any recruits at the game. They're all playing. And their families are all at their son's games, like they should be, and all that.

I am about 15-year high school coach and have a lot of respect for what they do and how that night is special.

So whenever I'm asked -- I don't sit bring it up there every meeting -- but I know everybody has different opinions and there's different reasons. I don't sit in their seat. I don't make those decisions.

But I do feel like I've been consistent. I'm not trying to just keep bringing it up. I just think it's important. And I understand the whole dynamics of it all with different variables with media and everything. But there's certain things that if anybody wants to know my opinion, they know what it is.”

On Aaron Casey’s Performance:

“He just played with a lot of confidence. He's very decisive in his run fits. And just played fast, played physical. Got guys on the ground, two elite running backs that are very, very talented players.

So just, like I said, the biggest thing was just the decisiveness in his fits. And I thought Jacob, JMF played really well too, right next to him. It's encouraging.

I've always said if you want to have a great defense have to have great linebacker play. So he definitely was our best player on that day, and I expect him to continue to grow and keep improving and getting better.

But he's the leader of our defense, and as we tell with our linebackers, that leadership is full in both verbal leadership and production. That's how you play linebacker. He did both, which is great.”

On the Performance of the Offensive Line:

“I've been asked about that a lot leading up to the first game, and I felt like that we were a lot better up front from, when you go through spring football and obviously everything you do in fall camp when you have pads on.

The next task was to see how you do in the game, but obviously against Ohio State, a team that's strong on both lines of scrimmages, traditionally.

I felt like we got movement. I felt like the guys were targeting their guys accurately throughout the game, and I thought they did a lot of positive things. We had two hits on the quarterback. We gave up one sack.

And I we did not sustain our blocks to the level that we know we have to moving forward. So this strain to finish, to me, is the next component to that. But step one is targeting the right guy, getting on the right people and creating movement.

To me, definitely much to build off of. Yes, I was encouraged by that, trying to get even more guys ready to play. You know, the course of the season guys get dinged up. To be able to mix and match and put our best five out there.

We made some adjustments and we have flexibility to move guys in and out a little bit, which is good. But you know, Coach Bostad's done a really good job with the group. And expectations just keep getting better every week.”

On the Conservative Play Calling and the Quarterback Situation:

“It's like anything else. You see what you see, and I feel free to make my comments. But there's also a lot of layers to it.

The one frustrating thing that kind of stuck out to me that really put our offense in a bad spot, we had four crucial penalties that caused us to -- we started four drives inside the 20, three inside the 10, which is tough. It affects play calling. It affects psyche.

All you have to do is look at the stats. When you start that far down inside your own territory, it's difficult against anybody to move the ball and score points, let alone against this team. So I think that put us in negative spot. It does affect you.

You try not to put your young quarterbacks in a bad situation to make a big mistake, a catastrophic mistake. You throw a pick-6 in that situation or you turn the ball over and it can snowball on you.

And so I also felt like -- this is just statistically it's true; we did not do well on first downs, which put us in too many third-and-longs, which, once again, that's the negative. That's the one thing you don't want.

There's about three teams in this league where you say, you know what, we've got to stay out of third-and-long as much as possible or you'll have a tough day. They're are one of those three, just because of what they can bring, their speed, their size, their mass over the edge. And they have two of the best defensive ends in the country and some inside guys are extremely explosive.

That puts a lot of pressure on your offense. That definitely probably played a role as well. But we're just going to grow with our guys. We've got to keep growing with them each week. You'll see that. We'll see that.

And I think there's no doubt. We didn't play good enough on offense to win. You have to score touchdowns. We all know that.

I know, when you think about up front, which is where it starts, and we have the skill around them, we've just got to keep growing it and get these young quarterbacks developed. And the best way to do it is to play and that's what they got a chance to do. And we didn't have play calling on either one of them, but it ended up being pretty balanced, not necessarily by design but just by the way it worked out.

We wanted them both to play, and they did. Like I said after the game, Tayven is going to start this week. And they'll both play this week and we'll have a chance to evaluate it and make a decision moving forward.”

More on How Both Quarterbacks Played:

“I think you have, in that setting, they have to make decisions. And sometimes they make good decisions in both the run game and throw game. I can say it about each one of them. And sometimes they didn't.

There were times where receivers didn't. It may look like the quarterback misses, but the receiver runs the wrong route, makes the wrong read. Just a couple of those that were broken up. If they were run, the routes were run a little different, different type of cuts and angles and things, it's a completion.

But I felt like that overall, I don't think either one of them just separated from the other. Just my opinion, just looking at it. You guys all saw the same thing I saw. Looking for that to continue this week. That's what we're looking for, someone just to separate and become the guy.

But I think that they showed their youth in some situations, but I thought they both showed poise. I think they both showed that the moment wasn't too big for them. But that was their first time playing that amount of snaps and at this level.

So you just gotta continue to evaluate, which we will. And obviously they can both throw and both run it. And you just gotta be able to figure out who's the one who's going to give us the best opportunity to win on game day.”

On His Relationship with the Mallory Family:

“Just a ton of respect, as a matter of fact. I've always talked with Curt a lot, but during the pandemic we talked a lot. He was just kind of had a lot of questions about what was next, this and that, what are we saying in our meetings with coaches in the Big Ten and knew that would kind of affect them, and how are we doing this, how are we doing that.

He and I have talked a lot. Just highly respect him. When I was a high school coach, he was a college coach way back then. He and I are the same age. So just obviously close with his dad before we lost him, and then just Ellie's relationship with this whole town and so many people here and our program.

It will be a very warm embrace, not your typical. It will be more than your typical just pregame bro hug that coaches give, kind of thing. But just so much respect.

I know his brothers well, and just so much -- just a football family, good people, and they're so respected in this entire profession at such a high level. Just really looking forward to it. Always cheering for him when we're not playing him. Obviously this is the first time we've played him since I've been here.

But I think I probably knew Doug better, until the last two years really got a lot closer with Curt, because of proximity and being here. But just really neat family for sure. Excited to have that opportunity. Bunch of former players coming back to be able to unite and see both of them.

The Mallory family, pretty special to this program, no question.”

The Huddle

Notes and Quotes From Tom Allen's Media Monday: Week 2 Indiana State