Tom Allen Spring Practice No. 12 Update

TOM ALLEN

"It felt great to be outside. It took 12 practices to get outside. A lot of young guys got a lot of reps, which was by design. Rest some of the older guys. It's a good next step for us. Got a few more practices left and excited about the plays we keep making."

On the overall intensity:

"We started slow. I didn't like the first part of some things. We didn't execute as well on offense, especially the skelly period was sloppy. When we got in the red zone and started to go live, the intensity picked up. They had some good jawing back and forth, which is always fun. There was a lot of competition. They've been going against each other for a lot of days in a row. It's been good. Good intensity for the live parts."

On Jack Tuttle:

"He has a short-term sickness. He'll be 100 percent and recover from it, but he'll be done the rest of the spring."

On the spring game:

"What we're going to do is still have the spring game as always. The format might change a little bit as far as the offense vs. the defense and the 1s vs. the 2s like we've done in the past. We have to evaluate that. Still looking at all those options. We'll still have a full-bore live spring game."

On spring game snaps for QBs:

"We'll do some creative things to get Mike Penix out there. He got involved today in some team periods and some skelly periods. That was important for him. So we'll adapt and press on. That's what you have to do."

On changing his spring practices over time:

"I have a much bigger awareness of everything. I intentionally don't wear a headset during the live periods. I don't want to hear the calls. I want to see the team. I want to be the head coach of both sides of the ball and not just the defensive coordinator first, which is what you often do when you go live. I want to be able to do a better job with special teams and how that's being done. I sit in all those meetings. I sit in all the offensive meetings, which I had never done. It has a completely different feel. It empowers me to get more on the offense. Being more involved, I know exactly what they're going to be doing. It's a different feel for me. The offense might wish I was back on the defense because I will be on them a lot more. That's good. I want to bring that intensity and toughness to the offensive side. That's my personality and that's what we have to be as a football team."

On the offense being better today:

"That's good. We've had so much emphasis on the red zone in terms of getting stops on defense and improving our touchdowns on offense, and I thought they did a great job. As far as the offense, it takes time. First, it's a new system. Second, the defense is always ahead of the offense. You let your ears back and go, and can make some good things happen if there's a mistake. On offense everybody has to be executing together to make it work. You saw some of that today, of guys making plays. Some of the receivers caught the ball better as a group. They were making some of those contested catches. We had a couple of drops, so we'll keep working on that. The offense did a much better job in the live gos. That's what you want to see, that progress."

On getting more familiar with the new offense:

"I think so. It takes time. Offense is about timing and execution. Emotionally, you've got to take that out of it. You have to play hard and be physical, yes, but you have to execute. You saw that done much better today by our offense."

On Cam Jones playing different positions:

"He's in his linebacker phase of spring ball. He's playing with more confidence. He has a great strike. He's a physical specimen who can really run and finish plays. I love his versatility. We're just doing some things to maximize our roster."

On the key to the last week before spring game:

"I really want to polish everything up. I want to make sure – we'll meeting this afternoon to discuss, these are the things we want to be able to do extremely well in the spring game. You have two more (practice) opportunities. We don't get these chances in the summer – we can't work with them like that at all – so you want to really take advantage of that. On the Thursday practice we'll just have helmets only. Get a lot of quality reps. I want the guys, from what we've installed in the spring, I want to feel good about the execution on both sides of the ball. That will be our emphasis. Also a couple days of blocking technique and tackling technique and getting pads on."

Indiana University Athletics

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