INDIANA UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 13, 2021

Tom Allen

Press Conference

Indiana 3, Rutgers 38

TOM ALLEN: All right. Really nothing positive to say. Very disappointing, frustrating, bad performance by our team. So very upset about it. And we'll just have to evaluate it and address it and continue to press on.

Questions.

Q. I guess to what extent -- and I know it's immediately after, there's not time to process a lot of it, but to what extent do you almost feel like some of it is intangible? It's guys disengaging? I don't know if it's losing faith or losing hope but just not being able to find the fight, I guess?

TOM ALLEN: Well, losing today the way we did showed that. You've got six turnovers, you know, not handling the football right from the first play on. And just execution in that regard. Dropped balls, missed tackles.

And I get it. I understand this is hard. That's fully understandable. But you have to also take a strong, hard look at yourself and how you want to be known and remembered and identified by how you play the game. And that's what it is.

You put that out there, and you put it on film. And you've got to own that. And we've got to own that as coaches. So that's the part that really disappoints me was just the lack of execution and just doing things the right way.

Yeah. I know we've got a whole bunch of guys out, but that's not the point. To me, that's just irrelevant. You still play hard, you still play physical, you still execute and do what you're coached to do.

But, yeah, very -- to me, that's the biggest thing that sticks out is that's not how we practice. So that's just really -- had it been that way all week, I kind of maybe would have felt a little different. But you fumble the first play of the game, I think you just unfortunately set a tone that we never seemed to snap out of. But, yeah, very, very frustrating.

Q. Coach, what would you -- what would your message be to fans to give them hope that next year will be substantially different from this year?

TOM ALLEN: Yeah. Better be. You know, I expect it to be. But, obviously, we've got to finish out this year. There's no doubt -- I get it. I understand that that's our responsibility to be able to play to our standard and the way we want to play each and every time we take the field no matter what the circumstances are.

And right now, we let the circumstances I felt kind of drive the way that -- the energy we played with and the focus we played with and the effort we played with. And that's just -- it's not how it works. You can't let that become the driving force.

And so, to me, you know, the guys -- as I just shared with them -- it wasn't like it was a real positive message in the locker room. It was pretty in your face. And that's what it is because it's not acceptable.

So, to me, we've got to find a way to be able to finish out these last two games and play with toughness, grit, and fight.

Q. Jack was able to play there for a while so, obviously, he was healthy enough to do that. What was the thought process that went into who started and how much you were hoping to get from Jack today?

TOM ALLEN: Yeah. So the thought process was, you know, obviously Jack was the starter before getting injured, and if he can physically go -- really weren't sure when the week started how that was going to play itself out and how that looked. But I feel like that he made progress each and every day.

And so just knew that Donaven was going to be the starter because we just didn't want it to be the case where we didn't know how long Jack would be able to go. We felt good by the end of the week he was going to be able to play. And then kind of see how he did when he was in there, how his foot held up and then expected to play both of them. Wanted to kind of complement the two together.

Basically, that was the thought was to be able to play them both for sure. And based on how each was doing and how the game was flowing, we'd kind of just gauge the rest of it from there.

And then, obviously, Jack ended up getting injured. It wasn't even the foot that he had already injured. So it's a different one. But just -- and then once he went down, obviously, Donaven took the rest of it.

Yeah. So I just expected to play both of them and obviously they did. And we've just got to -- it's one position, as all positions, just got to play better.

Q. Coach, offensively, from a schematic standpoint and how you want to attack defenses, how far away are you guys from what you want it to look like? And what needs to change to get it to where you want it to look like?

TOM ALLEN: Yeah. To me, where I envision this is being able to stress the defense and stay on the field. We like to be able to utilize -- to play winning football where you drive down the field and you use up the clock. You have different tempos that you're able to utilize through that.

And, obviously, the lack of high level quarterback play has been not to what -- what I want or expect. And then got to evaluate up front as well because it obviously starts up front.

But just -- I mean, obviously, at this point, we're not scoring points. So it's not even close to what we want to it be. It's not even close to the way we want it to look.

So that's something we have to look, and we will. At this point right now it's trying to find a way to get ourselves in a position to go win a football game, which we've not been able to do.

Q. The sideline incident between Peyton and Devon, what was your reaction to that? And is that going to be something that's going to be addressed during the week?

TOM ALLEN: Devon Matthews and Peyton, two highly competitive guys. And they both want to when. They're both frustrated. They made it right together between the two of them.

But, yeah, they're frustrated. They want to win. And they want to -- they know that we're not playing the way we need to be playing. They know we're not playing the way we expected ourselves to play. And that's very frustrating.

So they're just two highly competitive guys that -- obviously you don't want to see guys getting at each other, but you know what, sometimes that's a part of the process you go through. And you just -- as a man, you confront it, like we did. And then those two guys were able to address it and press on. So I don't think it's an issue.

Q. I guess when did you know Cam Jones wasn't going to be able to play to today? What's his issue?

TOM ALLEN: Yeah. He's just sick, you know. And we thought -- we knew it was a concern but tried to get him hydrated, tried to -- just, you know, just sick. And just couldn't go.

That was a big blow. Really didn't -- a couple days ago didn't think that would be the case, but never turned for the better and we're never going to put him -- if the guy's not 100 percent ready to go, we're not going to put him at risk with that. So he was not able to go today. So that was definitely another guy we needed out there and didn't have.

Q. It's not COVID?

TOM ALLEN: No, it's not COVID. He'll be fine this week.

Q. Coach, I know it's not something you're thinking about this minute but maybe this weekend with the moving up of the early signing period. There's been a lot of changes and are personnel changes possible? Is that something you'd even consider before the end of the season? And is that something you've even thought about up to this point?

TOM ALLEN: You talking about personnel as in coaching?

Q. Yes.

TOM ALLEN: Okay. Those decisions will all be made when the season is over as far as just the evaluation of that. Nothing is going to happen right now.

Everything gets evaluated, you know. You have a season like this -- you always evaluate everything anyways. But a season like this and things don't go the way you want them to go, you've got to a take a hard look at every part of your program, all three phases, all the coaches, and myself included, but bottom line is we've got to find a way to win a football game right now.

Have a great day. LEO.