My Two Cents: Tom Allen Busy Working Every Day, Hopes Daily Testing Keeps it That Way
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — There are games on the horizon and practices most every day now, so Indiana coach Tom Allen is back in full-bore work mode, and nothing makes him happier.
And he's hoping — and hoping hard — that it stays that way.
The Big Ten season starts on Oct. 24, with Indiana hosting Penn State, and that's less than four weeks away now. Indiana and the rest of the Big Ten can start practicing in shoulder pads on Wednesday, and go to full pads on Saturday, where the Hoosiers will have their first muted scrimmage, or "Preseason Game No. 1'' as it's called on Allen's ever-changing practice calendar.
The second and third weeks will follow, and then comes Penn State game week, finally. The ACC and Big 12 have been playing for three weeks already, and the SEC started last weekend.
They're playing, but not without some major hiccups. More than a dozen games have been postponed or cancelled so far, Virginia Tech played without more than two dozen players last week and several teams were missing 10 or more guys. Notre Dame couldn't play at all last weekend.
Even Florida State got pounded by Miami without its new head coach, Mike Norvell, who tested positive himself. There's a lot of COVID drama everywhere.
The Big Ten is hoping to avoid all of that. No players or coaches tested positive during the first week of daily testing at Indiana, Allen said.
"You're hoping the rapid daily testing will eliminate a lot of that from happening as much, especially from the contact tracing perspective, which has been a big challenge for everybody. It doesn't eliminate the risk completely, but it will help,'' Allen said during a Zoom conference call with the local media on Monday.
"Those situations with teams having 23 guys out, and there's been several with teams in the teens or more, that is difficult. We heard about Florida State, and we heard about Virginia Tech where they were missing several coaches and even their backups were out, too. That's hard, but you have to be prepared for it.
Allen said they are as prepared as possible should those circumstances arise. Those plans have been in place for months, once it became obvious that COVID-198 concerns were here to stay.
"Everybody has somebody who's taking their place right now, but if it's the third guy or the fourth guy, that gets a little interesting,'' Allen said.
"It's made us talk about it quite a bit, to make sure we've had all that depth addressed. We've always talked about players having to step up, but now we're talking about coaches having to rise up and maybe have to call a game that maybe they weren't expected to call once the season starts.''
The daily testing will hopefully eliminate a lot of the mass outbreaks at schools. The ACC schools have only been testing two or three times a week, and that's proven to be a failure. The Big Ten is paying for daily testing starting Wednesday, but Indiana has been doing it on its own since last week as an added precaution. They have a full roster intact, and they want to keep it that way.
Now that they're back to work, it's all systems go.
"We just finished with practice this morning, and we're in a good flow with practice right now, '' Allen said. 'We'll be in shoulder pads on Wednesday and Thursday, we'll have a walk-through on Friday and we'll have live reps in full pads on Saturday for preseason game number one, which will be modified.''
Allen said having this extra time with the players before the late October start has been good, because they only had four practices in the spring and none of the players-led workouts took place this summer at all. Things are coming together nicely, and he's looking forward to getting everyone in pads on Saturday.
With a conference-only schedule, it's important to be at their best right from the opening kickoff of the season
"We need to play our very best football right out of the gate, starting on the 24th,'' Allen said of the Penn State opener. "They are a very good football team and there's no ramping up on your schedule this year. But we've done it in the past. My first year, in 2017, we opened on a Thursday night against Ohio State.
"Everyone in the conference is dealing with the same situation, and we're looking forward to having one of the top teams in the country coming to Bloomington. I do think that's a positive, because it creates that natural sense of urgency with the players. They know full well how good Penn State is.''
Getting used to real football quickly is going to be important. That's why Saturday's first full-go workout in pads is important.
"It'll be a little different this year because we've had more padded practices in past. We won't do as many reps,'' Allen said of Saturday's first scrimmage time. "We used to try to get 50 reps or so for the first-team guys, but we'll probably cut that number in half.
"We'll emphasize physical football. We'll have officials there, and we want to create as much live football as we can, as much as our bodies are ready for. We'll create red zone situations and create specific circumstances, like third-and-medium, third-and-long and third-and-short. We'll get to as much as we can.''
All the starting and stopping to the season has taken some getting used to, but everyone is handling it well. It's a strange season to be sure, but at least everyone in the Big Ten is in the same boat. You play catch-up, but so is everyone else.
Indiana has 16 starters back, and that helps. There's plenty of experience on both sides of the ball, and plenty of leaders, too
"We've got a lot of guys back, but it's never the same as it was before. We're always learning, as we should be,'' Allen said. "There are pros and cons to both situations. We'd like to hit more, but being able to work on the communications pieces has been good, too.
"We've tried to maximize the time we've been given. It's been good.''
Related stories on Indiana football
- BALL OUT FOR YEAR: Indiana lost a key piece to its defense when senior Marcelino Ball tore his ACL during practice last week. CLICK HERE
- INDIANA STARTING DAILY TESTING RIGHT AWAY: Indiana has started daily, rapid testing immediately, which has helped the program get off to a good start. CLICK HERE
- INDIANA'S 2020 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE: To view Indiana's full 2020 football schedule, CLICK HERE
