Tom Allen Talks Indiana Football with Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana football coach Tom Allen was interviewed by Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski on “Basketball and Beyond with Coach K."
It aired on Sirius XM Thursday night.
Here's some of the highlights from the conversation between Allen and Krzyzewski.
“You know, a tremendous amount of respect for our basketball program, a lot of love for (them),” Allen said. “I’m from New Castle. That's my home. My dad was the head football coach there, coach Alford, Steve’s dad, was the head basketball coach there, so I've known Steve since I was a boy. He's a few years older than me, so I’ve come and been raised in a basketball environment. I wanted to come here and build a football program. I just really believe you can do both. I think we can be great in basketball and great in football.
“To me, it's about expectations and beliefs, and when I got here we had to change the mindset. Before there’s reality, there’s mentality and I believed we could do it here, so I think that's where it all began. And in one of our first meetings, before we started the season, when I first got here, I had players write on a three-by-five card of what they thought our record was going to be that given season. And after they wrote the record and I said ‘okay guys, I’m sure you probably didn’t put down 12-0 so, whichever teams you said we were going to lose to - you think how many games we’re going to lose? You write down the names of the teams we’re going to lose to.’ And they kind of looked at me like ‘seriously?’ I said ‘yeah, go ahead and do that.’
“I said ‘don’t put your name on it. I want the truth.’ And I said ‘okay, pass them up.’ So I had everybody pass them up and I started flipping through them. I said ‘okay fellas, when we go to play Michigan sSate, all you guys who put Michigan State down as a team we’re going to lose to, don’t show up. Stay in your dorm room. Stay in your apartment. You don’t believe.’ And I flipped through a couple more. I didn't have to do that very long, they got the point.
“I said ‘fellas, I want a football team and I want a coaching staff that believes, because if you don’t believe, we’ve got no chance.’ And that’s how it started. I wanted to change the expectations and I wanted to create belief and that’s what we've been doing.”
No. 10 Indiana plays at No. 18 Wisconsin this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
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