Tom Allen Ready to Move Past 'Hardest Season' of Professional Career

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following quotes were given during a one-on-one interview with Indiana head coach Tom Allen. We want to thank IU Athletics and Coach Allen for taking the time to sit down with Hoosier Huddle to talk about all things IU football. This is the first article of many from this interview.

There is no hiding the fact that the 2021 football season was a massive disappointment for the Hoosiers as they stumbled to a 2-10 season. It was a season where it seemed everything that could go wrong, did. Whether it was key injuries, a turnover in the red zone or getting gashed by big plays on defense. Indiana head coach Tom Allen knows how hard it was and is ready to turn the page while also taking valuable lessons from a season that saw IU start pre-season top 25 and finish 2-10 and winless in the Big Ten.

“When things don't go the way you expect them to go you sit back and evaluate. You go through and try to look at things in a very, very detailed way of what may went wrong.” Allen reflected.

“The first thing we look at was all the injuries and all that and try to figure out if there was something we could have done and so that was that was part of it.” Allen said.

The Hoosiers were ravaged by injuries to key players all throughout the year, including the spring and preseason. They lost their two top quarterbacks during the season in Michael Penix and Jack Tuttle while also losing Dexter Williams in spring practice. By the end of the season, the running backs room was a shell of what it was in September, IU also lost their most dynamic receiver in D.J. Matthews in game four. There were too many significant injuries to list that occurred in games during the season that helped derail the year.

However, injuries were not the sole reason IU fell flat, they lacked production on offense and defense.

“You go look at just kind of maybe the lack of production on both sides.” Allen said. “'Hey, why don't you get enough takeaways?', which has been a big part of our defense here, really dropping off in that area. And then you look at offense and not scoring points and explosive plays and just trying to even look at some schematic things , and then just go into personnel and just trying to find getting guys in the right spots. All those things go into all this.”

It was a nightmare year for Allen who had to fire offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan and fill open vacancies at the wide receiver and running backs coaching positions as well.

“It was the hardest season for me, professionally I've ever had in 30 years.” Allen explained.

Allen learned lessons both personally and professionally from last season.

“I think that the lesson personally is you got to keep the main thing the main thing and and don't get sidetracked.” Allen said. “You may make changes and adjust but you don't get discouraged, defeated in that way. I think that's where you just got to learn from everything.”

Allen is ready to put the 2021 season behind him. His players are as well.

“I'm tired of talking about it.” Allen said. “We have to, I get it. I understand that. I think our players have kind of put it behind us and I think we have a good core guy that I really think really, really upset by what happened.”

The process of building is not always linear and IU found that out last season, which is why Allen’s team word for 2022 is ‘Build’.

“When you build something it's not usually like this (Allen gestured a straight line with his arm). Obviously (we) took steps backwards on the field and so now you got to readjust from that and get back to work.” Allen explained.

“it's gonna be I think a great igniter of a lot of good fuel for our guys because we got a quick quick reminder what happens.” Allen said.

The Hoosier faithful hope that fuel is used to light the fuse against Illinois on September 2nd when the Illinois Fighting Illini coming to Bloomington for the season opener on a Friday night.