Postgame Quotes: vs No. 5 Ohio State

Indiana vs. No. 5 Ohio State
October 23, 2021
Postgame Quotes

Tom Allen | Indiana Head Coach
On Tuttle's injury...
TA: Yeah. You know, obviously, it hurt us without question. He did a great job while he was in there. Don't know yet. Did do an x-ray right afterward, and that came back negative. But need to do an MRI to find out more ligament-wise what the injury is. Obviously, he's in a lot of pain right now. But don't know. Don't know yet on that. But, yeah, definitely without him in there, it just wasn't quite the same.

On how the QB situation played out...
TA: Well, so, basically, you know, Grant has taken some reps in practice. But there was sometimes it felt like Donaven was a little bit rattled, you know, and just kind of get him calmed down. And just wanted to see him progress through that. Obviously, he did some positive things. So Grant, obviously, is a guy that can throw the ball. But, yeah, that was never a thought going into the season. But you got starters down. And your number two goes down. And now you got one scholarship quarterback left healthy, and that's Donaven. So you've just got to battle. Next man up. So not necessarily at all what any of us expected for sure.

On the players picking themselves up after these games...
TA: I think that's fair. I think that's a realistic challenge without question. But I also feel like that, you know, just by the way the guys -- just listen to them talk to each other on the sideline and halftime. You know, that's just -- we don't have a choice. You know, it's not anywhere close where any of us thought it was going to be.

But, at the same time, you know, I'm proud of our guys for staying together. And I think that's what they're going to continue to do. But, yeah, I think the challenges are there for sure. But you know what, I mean, that's -- LEO is our foundation. And it's about accountability, toughness, and love when things are going your way and when things are not.
And right now, the injuries continue to mount. And the disappointments have continued. And so you've got to be able to fall back on who you are and what you are made of internally. And so that accountability and that toughness is paramount at this point.

So that isn't going to change. As tough as tonight was, it's one that we just have to put in the trash and press on. Pretty special football team that we just played tonight. I've been here for several years and with that quarterback playing the way he is right now, it's impressive. So they've got a lot of talent without question. And you saw a lot of it tonight.

On the defensive performance...
TA: Yeah. I expected us to play better. I did. I was concerned. You know, to say that -- not having Reese and Tiawan, I would say it makes a major difference in our defense, especially against those receivers and really modified the way we felt like we had to play. We knew we weren't going to have Reese at all after late in the week. And then we were hoping to have Tiawan more. But that did not end up being the case. So they are progressing. Hopefully next week they'll both be able to go. But without a doubt, that has a major impact on what you do schematically against these guys. And so, yeah, it just really compounded the problem in my opinion.

But you try to adjust and adapt to your guys and give them a chance to be successful. But it really came down to not getting pressure on him. That's really what kind of caused the biggest issues. And you try to do different types of ways of creating that and try to do some just other things we felt like would give us a chance. But they picked a lot of those things up. And they did a good job of that. So, yeah, it was -- those guys are a big part of our defense. There's no question about it.

On what Ohio State was doing well...
TA: Yeah. I mean, I just -- to me, the biggest problem I think was -- I was most disappointed in our tackling in the first half. To me, that was really what I didn't expect at all and our run defense. I do get it when you do some things with vision you're trying to create and not give up the explosive plays in the pass game. And I think that's -- if I could go back and you look at it, I think maybe too much emphasis on that, you know, and sometimes you've got to live with it.

But I was definitely very concerned about that with our injuries that we had, with our corners and the lack -- even some depth at our safeties because of some previous injuries as well. I just felt that maybe hold up and not be able to give up those explosive plays and still stop the run. I think that's maybe where the problem was created. And then you just pretty much -- we weren't good enough against the run because if you can't stop the run, it really makes it hard because they're still getting those pass plays as well. Yeah. It was ugly. That's really the only way -- that's the best way to describe it. It was painful. Especially that second quarter window was just -- it was just not good.

But, yeah, I think, like you said, when you start to play a more keep things in front of you approach, to me, we've just got to be more aggressive. If they throw it over your head, they throw it over your head, so be it.

On Donaven being ready...
TA: Yeah. I think there's definitely some concern of him just being ready for that. He's got to grow for. It's got to expand without a doubt. But I think it's not one to put him in a bad spot to get back there and have to make some complex reads. I think that was kind of the thought process. So you kind of have a plan going in, you know, to be able to allow him to really focus on those small things throughout the week. And then when Jack goes out so early, it was really kind of -- it really kind of put us in a position that we really didn't want to be in. And that, once again, kind of goes back to why we played Grant more. Just because you have a guy like Donaven who has not been here, here last spring, not here -- just over the things we did during fall camp and working -- you know, just doesn't have enough reps to be honest with you. I think that's a part of it that we've obviously got to address. We tried to get that. We tried to focus in on some certain things he can do from a run pass read perspective and RPO options. That was kind of a little way to protect him in some ways with those complex drop back reads. So obviously Grant's been here quite a big longer and knows them way better. So that was the reason why we used him in those situations. But based on what happens with Jack, we'll have to come up with an expanded plan for him without question.

On keeping defensive starters in late...
TA: They didn't want to come out. Yeah. That was -- and still, you know what, at the same time, we've got a lot of positions. We don't have a lot more guys left in some of those spots. But they didn't want to come out. Even -- I was having a little bit of a discussion with one of them about I wanted to take him out. He didn't want to come out. And I respect that. I appreciate that. But that was probably the biggest reason.

Have a great night. LEO.

Micah McFadden | LB | Sr.
On not being able to slow Ohio State offense...
MM: Yeah, no, it was pretty difficult. I think they did a great job just running through their tempos and we couldn't really get our feet in the ground early, and it hurt us. They hit us on some gashes in the red zone and they were kind of dinkin' and dunkin' us down the field a little bit, but the receivers made the plays, and quarterback played great. But it hurts for this defense, and I'm sad we didn't play better.

On defensive plan with their wide receivers...
MM: I think sometimes we did blitz, and I think they honed in on it pretty well. But we didn't get the pressure we needed. We weren't in his face as much as we should have been. Part of it was game plan and trying to protect the deep ball, which I don't think they had to many explosives, but still they were driving the ball on us and we needed to fix that.

On locker room atmosphere after 2-5 record...
MM: We got to flush this. This is a start to a completely new season for the Hoosiers. We're moving on to the next game. We can't dwell on this. I mean hats off to them, great team, but we're better than that, we know that. It's college football, you got to come back every week ready to play, so it's on me, it's on the leaders of this team, it's on the coaching staff and every player in the locker room to step up and find a way to win a game."

Peyton Hendershot | TE | Sr.-R
On what they saw on offense…
PH: You can see how good our offense can be with that first drive. I don't know how many plays, but we kept going, marched down the field and scored. Coach Tom Allen's challenge was to learn from this, move on, and now it's time to focus on Maryland. That is the biggest game of the season because it is the next one.

On the offensive struggles…
PH: Coach Allen challenged us this week with one thing we could do better from last week. We needed the leaders to step up and make plays. We made sure in practice this week that we did things drastically different because what we were doing previously was not working. Coach Allen challenged us do more, do something extra to get us on the path of wining. We know we are a good football team. We need to pay our best football for four quarters and that is not what we have done.

On the mentality going forward…
PH: I feel like all we need is one game to get going and rolling. All it takes is one game to get the team's confidence back. I think we must keep our head down and keep doing the work. Everything you do in the dark comes to the light. You do not know how close you are to breaking through. We just how to keep pushing, keep working, and hopefully we get closer to our goal.

Ryan Day | Ohio State Head Coach:
On upcoming schedule...
RD: "Well I just think it's always been about us and that's what we have to focus on. We know as we head into this game, we kind of figured that we had no record, we were 0 and 0. This is the first win in the second half of the season and that's the way we're looking at it. But I thought we came out and played well, we actually didn't expect any rain and we got some rain and I thought we handled that well. And like you said after the first drive I thought the defense played well. I know that they are down some guys on offense but still I thought we ran around them and played, and we got a bigger challenge like you said here next week."

On Zach Harrison and other players stepping up…
RD: "Yeah, yeah, a bunch of guys did. It was great to see those guys running around it looked like they were having fun out there, and that's good and that's part of the energy and confidence that we want."

On the team's offensive efficiency…
RD: "It's something, I guess. But really, it's just a matter of going out there every single day in practice and trying to execute at a high level and being really hard on ourselves, like our standard is hard. If we don't complete a pass or we miss a protection or something like that, we're hard on ourselves. And that's what you want. These guys, they like football, and so we know that we got to get back there, and get our rest, we got to get right back on this film here with Penn State because they have a very, very good defense. This is going to be the biggest challenge of the year coming up. So, it's good, we do have some confidence and we are playing at a high level but that's not going to mean anything if we don't do it again next week."

On TreVeyon Henderson…
RD: "I think he's running hard. I think he's playing on contact like you said, for a freshman to do that, that's good. The number one thing is, he's taking care of the football and that's what has to continue. If we're going to make a run at this thing, we got to take care of the football. We cannot turn the ball over. That's something that we just cannot forget about. And he, and Miyan, and Evan, I was impressed with the way Evan ran down the stretch. That's good, we're going to need some of the depth there. But across the board, I think the depth, you're starting to see that you're starting to see a bunch of guys get on the field and that's what we're looking for."

Indiana University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Peyton Hendershot

Micah McFadden

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