INDIANA UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 16, 2023

Tom Allen

Press Conference

Louisville 21, Indiana 14

TOM ALLEN: Just want to start by, hearts are heavy. The loss of Marty Clark from our program and university, such a tough battle last couple years. He's such a fighter. Prayers for his family. Just really want to be there for them during this tough time. Very, very, very special person.

Just proud of our football team. But you got to play two halves of football. Disappointed in our first-half performance. Gave up some big plays by our defense. Too many self-inflicted wounds offensively in the first half.

Man, just proud of our team's fight. Really didn't have any momentum going into halftime. The guys bowed up and showed a lot of fight to be able to shut them down in the second half, give ourselves a chance offensively to win the game. Just proud of that.

Got a lot of work to do. Got a young quarterback that obviously can make plays, is growing up, is going to be some growing pains with that. At the same time you can see what he can become. Got to build our team around the positives and continue to battle and fight, because this team has character. We just got to get better.

Questions.

Q. Tate's first performance. Second half a little bit better than the first half. Before you can watch film, what did you feel from him on the sidelines?

TOM ALLEN: Yeah, I think there's no question, you could see him growing up throughout. There's things that happen that you don't always see, especially in the first half, just mistakes being young, the clock, different formations, checks, seeing guys in motion, things like that. But those will continue to get better and better.

But I just love the fact that he just makes plays. He's able to create, extend plays, eyes downfield, finding receivers. Those are things you can't teach. That's just instinctual things that he has.

He's got a lot of confidence, a lot of moxy that I've said from day one, one of his strengths. Those things are showing up. We're just trying to find a way to move us down the field.

Like I said, we got to play two halves of football. That's really the bottom line.

Q. I know it's more than about one play. Fourth and goal at the one-foot line, you call a timeout. Your thoughts on that?

TOM ALLEN: Could have run a quarterback sneak, run your base power play, whatever. We obviously chose to run, not to sneak. Obviously since it didn't work, you want to run the other one. We scored previously on the other one. Yeah, didn't work, so...

You obviously wish you would have done something else. I think that's how we all would think the same exact way.

I don't second-guess that. Goodness, you just got to execute. You have the ball on the six-inch line. Knock 'em off the football and score. I don't care what you call. If you run the football... You do something that has a little riskiness to it.

We didn't execute it obviously. That's frustrating. I'm sure that's one that everybody is going to focus on. There are a lot of other variables leading up to that. Since the play didn't work, I wish we would have called something else. I love or team, love our coaches. We just got to keep battling.

Q. (No microphone.)

TOM ALLEN: Yeah, I was disappointed we did. We actually moved the ball. I thought we hurt ourselves offensively with self-inflicted mistakes. Then I thought defensively we just gave up some big plays. You can't do that. That was the frustration from the first half. I didn't think we defended the run in the first half either.

Yeah, even as the half was ending, which is why I chose to not go forward on fourth down there, punt the ball, get out of the half and regroup, because I was planning on kicking on-side kick to start the second half because I knew we had to kick off. We thought we had a shot to get it if the opportunity presented itself.

So, yeah, that was something we went in at halftime, already made that decision being in there for one or two minutes.

Q. Did you practice that?

TOM ALLEN: We actually repped it two previous times that week. That's one of those deals where I have a situation with Casey. I say if we're going to do something like that, I have to see it executed in practice. If we hadn't done it well in practice, I wouldn't have called it. He did. We were 2-2 in practice. Now we're 3-3.

Q. The big plays were limited in the second half (indiscernible).

TOM ALLEN: High discipline. One of our young corners was the first culprit. He bit on a play fake. He's playing deep third, which can't happen. That's learning from his mistake in the first half was huge.

Then just really, really emphasized eyes, eyes, eyes. We made some adjustments and calls at halftime. I thought coach did a really good job at halftime getting adjustments on both sides of the ball.

To me it's more about executing what you're doing. Every coverage has levels to it. If you're the guy that's supposed to be on top, you better have that discipline, execute, or else you're going to give up those double moves, the play-action passes.

Did some things up in the front area, too, to help us on the run game. I thought Coach Craig did a great job doing some adjustments as well as Coach Bell.

Q. But what are your thoughts about the decision to cancel the rest of the series with Louisville?

TOM ALLEN: I would just say that in the last six months, the Big Ten has changed a lot. We've added four teams to this conference that has changed the landscape of the Big Ten. I believe that we have to adjust accordingly.

To me, we have to do what's best for our football program.

Q. (Question about the pass-rush in the second half.)

TOM ALLEN: Yeah, they do a really good job of this. I was very frustrated with the lack of that being acknowledged. So we just tried to just keep fighting through it. We called some more things on some second downs to get us a better chance to get a pass-rush in those play-action situations.

Got a really good pass-rusher, No. 1. I think his jersey right now is almost ripped in half. Don't recall ever seeing anything with that. That's a frustrating thing.

Just got to keep playing. I just handle that with those. But we tried to do some things to do a better job of keeping edges. A couple times he rolled out, lost containment, which just can't happen. The last third down was a mistake by our backs, not containing the quarterback, a throwaway or a sack.

I thought we did a better job of securing the edges in the second half.

Q. (Question about Jaylin.)

TOM ALLEN: We worked hard on that this off-season, for him in that role. I just continue to see that being a focus for him, getting the ball in space, try to do a good job with that.

As with all of our guys, you try to maximize an individual's talent, what he can do. Getting him the ball in space is important, whether it's hand it to him or throwing it to him. Like I said, he works really hard on that and we're going to continue to emphasize that.

Q. How were you able to keep the guys locked in?

TOM ALLEN: I think it speaks to the character of our guys. They fought. Challenged them at halftime to see, get a chance to see who we are as a football program and a team. Every team is different.

I believe the in core values of our program. With all the new faces we have, I want to see these guys fight through adversity, fight through some hard things, even if you sometimes create them yourself.

How you respond in a game is important. Our guys bowed up and fought. That's a good sign. Then we had a great week of practice. Just expected us to play well. Disappointed we didn't. Sometimes it's schematic things you give up, you continue to do that. They give some new looks, whatever things you didn't expect.

But at the same time I felt like we were ready. I just think we didn't execute consistently on either side of the ball, third downs on defense. Then just overall offensively in the first half to be able to finish those drives. We had some good drives, we just didn't finish those drives. At least try to get some field goals, not be down 21 at halftime.

When you have a new group like we have, so many new faces, for them to be able to battle through and fight to the finish was encouraging. We just got to play four quarters.

Q. (Question about the linebacker core.)

TOM ALLEN: Some schematic adjustments at halftime. Called some different things just to try to take away the things they were doing well in the first half.

A couple of missed tackles. We missed a few tackles in the first half as well that you can't do. They got two good running backs. It was a combination of schematic adjustments as well as our guys wrapping better, running their feet through contacts. Aaron Casey is a huge part of that. He continues to play well.

We just can't give up the big plays whether it's in the run game or the throw game, especially in the pass game in the first half. Starts up front, you got to be able to stop the run and be able to read react from there.

Q. (Question about sacks.)

TOM ALLEN: I think that's hard to teach that. I think there's a lot of instinctual components to that, that a guy has a pocket presence to him, that he can feel. He knows where to step up to. Coach Bell does a good job of teaching a lot of those things. From my experience, the guy that has the ability to just feel it instinctually is pretty special.

He seems to have that, which is great. Takes some stress off the O-line, as well. Not to be perfect in those situations, but it's obviously important to keep him protected. It's been a big objective for us to do that. We're doing a solid job of that right now. We just got to continue to get better on that so we can get him a clean pocket. We obviously have receivers that can make plays, there's several of them. We have to continue to help him grow.

He is a talented quarterback, he's a really good football player. Like I said before, he's only going to get better.

Appreciate you. LEO.