Tom Allen Provides Indiana Football COVID-19 Update, Says Team Hopes to Practice Next Monday
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — For the first time since Indiana paused all team-related activities due to COVID-19, head coach Tom Allen met with the media to provide an update on his team.
Allen said there are currently 28 positive cases within the program between "tier 1" players and coaches right now.
Those 28 cases been in effect since after the Wisconsin game, which took place Dec. 5 in Madison.
Currently, all 28 members who are positive are in isolation, according to Allen.
"Everything is via Zoom," Allen said. "If they do anything that they are involved with us, it is not in person. Their food is delivered to their apartment or dorm so they have pretty much been totally isolated from everybody else."
Every other member of the team that isn't positive has been in quarantine for the past seven days.
All they would do is come in the morning, get tested and then leave.
Tuesday was the first day Indiana did some cohort work, having guys come in small groups to work in the weight room and get some running in.
"Today was our first day back of having guys here and able to lift so I was around our healthy guys but still a pretty skeleton crew," Allen said. "Those guys did some good things today and we will do that for the rest of this week."
The goal is for the team to be back at practice on Monday, Dec. 21.
Indiana is not playing Purdue this weekend, so the Hoosiers finish the regular season 6-1, with their only loss coming to Ohio State on the road.
Indiana will find out what bowl it will be playing in this upcoming Sunday.
"The goal is to be able to systematically build off of that and put us in a position to be able to have a regular practice on Monday in preparation," Allen said. "We feel that it will give us two full weeks of bowl prep."
As for what bowl game the Hoosiers will be competing in, Allen believes his team is deserving of a New Year's Six Bowl, which are either the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl.
Indiana is currently No. 12 in the College Football Playoff rankings — the new rankings will be released tonight at 7 p.m. ET — and in the most recent New Year's Six projections, the Hoosiers weren't included.
Indiana is ranked No. 7 in the Associated Press top-25 poll.
"To be able to play the schedule that we played, playing consecutive Big Ten games, were tough football games and physical football games," Allen said. "I think our guys did a tremendous job of being refocused each week and playing to a level each week, so I think we deserve it."
But no matter what bowl game Indiana ends up competing in, Allen believes this season has been memorable, and the Hoosiers want to close it out the right way.
Indiana hasn't won a bowl game since 1991, so the Hoosiers' goal right now is to get healthy and to get ready to knock off another milestone.
"I do feel like our guys have done a tremendous job putting themselves in the position at this point," Allen said. "We have done what we have done and there is nothing we can do to change that. We just need to sit and wait to see what happens.
"We are going to focus our attention on finishing strong and finding out our opponent and bowl destination and preparing for that."
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