Media Monday: at Iowa

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The first weekly media session of the 2021 season took place inside the Memorial Stadium, as Indiana head football coach Tom Allen addressed the media to talk about the completion of fall camp and the upcoming matchup in Iowa City.

Below is a partial transcript of the press conferences from Monday, August 30. Video of the full media session can be found on the right sidebar at IUHoosiers.com.

Tom Allen | Head Coach
Opening Statement
TA: Good morning. Feels great to be back in this spot, to be able to have our press conferences and see most of you in person, which is great, so we appreciate you being here.

Just want to start by saying that we had a great finish to fall camp with our mock game on Saturday, something that we traditionally do to be able to create game-like situations and game-like flow for our players and simulating where we're going to be at on the field for everything that we do from start to finish. And then to have a great practice of situational football in spiders. So that was really effective, I thought, and very good and now we are ready to get into game week mode.

So just really appreciate our players' focus and effort throughout fall camp and I thought that's been very positive. Now we have to get ready for opportunity number one.

I do want to announce our captains. We voted for those guys this weekend and we actually have six. I think it's pretty indicative of this team, just have a large number of guys, I think since I've been here it's the most we have had in terms of getting double digit votes by their teammates, just a large group of guys, even many that didn't get selected were very, were close and which kind of speaks to the depth of our leadership on this team and a lot of guys that are respected and guys that were voted on by their teammates.

Micah McFadden, Michael Penix Jr., Cam Jones, Ty Fryfogle, Marcelino McCrary-Ball and Peyton Hendershot. We had three on offense and three on defense. I just really feel like it's a great group of young men that have been here for a while and have bought in and have, as I went through and challenged our team when they were about to vote and just gave three things that we were looking for: guys that you trust, guys that live out LEO, not perfect, nobody is, and guys that hold themselves accountable and hold their teammates accountable.

So obviously it is a strong group of guys there that this team has voted as the captains for 2021.

Then really want to say how excited we are to open our season at Iowa. We have so much respect for Coach [Kirk] Ferentz and what he's built at Iowa for so many years and the consistency and such a great program. Great opportunity for this program to play on the road there in Kinnick Stadium and it's going to be great atmosphere, great to have the fans back and it's going to be a tough and challenging environment to be in, without question, but just so much respect for their team as you go through and evaluate them. I know everybody's in the same boat, you're looking at 2020 film and projecting some things personnel-wise and schematically and everybody's in that same situation.

Defensively, they're just so sound, do such a great job up front and with how just disciplined they are. Physicality at the linebacker position and athleticism there. And then the secondary is really where their most experience lies with so many different guys back there having played a lot of football. They just don't make a lot of mistakes, they make you really have to execute at a high level.

Then, offensively, it just starts up front for them and excellent running game and quarterback that I know have played some really good football, especially as the season progressed and they expect and we expect [Spencer Petras] to take that growth opportunity, like we all did not have a previous spring, like he did not, and he is a guy that's a highly-talented individual that has a big-time arm and a lot of weapons around him. They're always good at tight end and that continues to be the case and same at receiver, a lot of playmakers there.

Special teams really jump out. They were the No. 1 special teams unit in the Big Ten last year and we were actually No. 2 [in the conference]. So that's going to play a big role in this game. They're very talented in the return game and at their specialist positions.

So, we have a lot of respect for [the Iowa] program and we're going to have to play our best football. So excited for the opportunity. Questions?

On what he learned from last season and how can he apply that to this season…
TA: I think that the thing that you learned is just the true value of staying true to the process and how you get your team to perform. It's all about consistent performance and how do you get that. Whether that's through high expectations, low expectations or everything in between, how do you get your team to perform at a high level each and every week to be able to block out those distractions.

In the past, those distractions have been negative distractions: people telling you what you can't do and judging you based on your past. Now you have to be able to block out the positive distractions and maybe some people saying that they're expecting you to do more things than you've maybe done in the past. You still have those that continue to doubt, but that's a part of it and that's okay.

I think just understanding how to address that with your guys. I think you don't shy away from it. I don't think that anything that's assumed and not addressed in both positive and negative situations creates a very positive outcome. I think you need to address things. We have tried to address this and talk about it as a team and being able to allow ourselves to consistently prepare at a high level.

That's why chase was chosen in 2021 at the beginning of the program and you don't just get better because you have a lot of guys back and you got a lot of guys that are supposed to be playing at a certain level, [chase] is what are you doing every single day. I think it's just a confirmation of how you do that, and I've been fortunate to be a lot of places that have had to, been a part of turnarounds and then you have success and then you have to play to those standards. So not necessarily as a college head coach, but definitely part of those staffs and then in high school as well.

I think it's just the people, it's leading a team, it's building a team and those principles are consistent and the same, no matter what the level is. I think it's the discipline to be true to who you are every day and not fall victim to listening to the outside noises occasionally. I think that to me is really the key to all this. What time teaches you is to trust that to not try to go out and reach for things that you think might be what they are. I think sometimes we over complicate situations and it's not easy, but it's a simple process.

On Ty Fryfogle's decision to return for his final season…
TA: I think for Ty and his decision-making process, we treated him like we did all the guys. We go through and we have a chance to sit down with them. It was a little bit unique with Ty because he, if I just kind of would give you a transparent answer, it was like in the beginning I felt pretty confident that he would probably come back. Then in the middle I was like 50/50 and I wasn't sure. Then at the end I was like, you know what, I feel, after meeting with him again, I felt pretty good that he had had that decision made up that he was going to return.

I think it's a healthy process to go through. I think for him he was, from the very beginning, pretty realistic about where he stood. He understood that you kind of look at the two areas, you look at the pool of guys that are going to be entering the draft and how that affects you and where you kind of fall within that group and then you look at yourself and how much more do I have to grow and to improve.

So, he looked at those two things and really felt from the beginning that it was probably in his best interest to return. The thing about Ty that I really really love, and I mentioned it last week, and I've come to the conclusion where if a young man kind of gets in his head that it's time to move on, it's hard to kind of reprogram that back. I've seen guys come back and they're worried about getting hurt and they're worried about this, and they start pressing, because they want to make more plays because [they came back], and they don't just let the game come to them. They can have a little bit different approach to practice. I never sensed that from him and it was just full speed ahead every practice, never ever looking for any veteran days off during spring ball or fall camp. I mean, that wasn't even part of his processing. Now you do a great job as a staff of taking care of him and he's obviously earned the right to be able to have some of those things, but he wasn't ever asking for them, never expected them. I think that's a big deal. He practices so hard, he's physical, he's tough and I've just been impressed.

I've done this enough to see guys all different ways and sometimes when a guy comes back and doesn't have that right mind set it's almost like he probably would have been better off if he would have moved ahead, because they're just not as good a football player. Because they got there by playing with an edge and playing relentless in how they approached things and that's how you have to play at this level, that's how you have to prepare at this level.

We laid the facts out and [co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach] Grant Heard did a great job talking with him, but I think he knew from the beginning that it would probably be in his best interest to keep developing and have an opportunity. And obviously he has a close relationship with Michael [Penix] and with Michael coming back, I think those things played variables as well for him in his decision making.

We are really glad he's here with us another year and he got voted as captain, which last year he wasn't a captain and so it's a tremendous honor for him to be viewed that way by his teammates. He's a very quiet leader, without question, but within the receiver room and his daily actions speak very, very loudly.

On the competition at running back…
TA: Yeah, I think at that position it became pretty obvious [Stephen Carr was going to be the starter]. There's no doubt, he came here and knew he had to earn that, and I believe that he has. And so, we're going to play a lot of guys at that position, always have, always will. But he will be the starter for game one and I feel like it was really, from day one he came here with zero entitlement at all, knowing he had to earn the spot, be ready to work, be a total team guy: not just in his words, his words definitely were that way, but his actions, and that's what I look for and just body language and how hard does he practice, how hard does he work on special teams and during those drills and those things that we ask him to do in those areas. So, that is a room that we really are excited about, and he's elevated himself within that room. I love how he practices, just even watching him during our last couple days we have been going with some spider practices and he's going full speed and finishing runs out. So, that's what you want in all the guys and that's the standard that [associate head coach/running backs coach] Deland McCullough has set in that room.

But, yeah, we're excited for him and feel like that he is a guy that even in that [running backs] room, and guys on the opposite side of the football, would agree that he's earned it.

On the health of Michael Penix Jr., David Ellis and Sio Nofoagatoto's…
TA: I would say that we are really encouraged with Michael's progress and I know we have talked about him for the last several months and probably every time I have spoken I've gotten a question about him and understandably so. I think that all along it's always been about just constant progress, constant working for him and as a matter of fact I met with him this past weekend and met with several different guys and for different reasons and he and I talked about that. I really commented him on buying into that process and how hard it is. You're going through fall camp, fall camp is hard and he's doing more than he's ever done in regard to every time we had a special teams period or a different type of period he was always with the training staff doing extra work, with our both weight room staff as well as our medical guys, just doing rehab and strengthening and conditioning and just doing extra things and he did that all fall camp. But even he did it last week.

So, he bought into that. He understood that was part of it. It was a constant process to get him ready for September 4 [at Iowa]. So very encouraged by his progress and he's right where we hoped he would be and he's 100 percent ready to be the starter on Saturday and so that's great.

David Ellis is still progressing, so I would say just continuing to monitor that every day. We have several days now to get him it in that position, so hopeful, but you never know. Then Sio has been cleared and so he's ready to go and he'll be with us tomorrow out there at practice. There's going to be guys that are working through some things which is always the case, even this time of year, even though you haven't played a game yet and we got a few guys in that mode. If guys are ready they're going to play, if not, next man up.

On if he has had time to scout Iowa…
TA: Yeah, a lot of time to watch them. Like I said, all three phases are impressive. You have to physically beat them. They don't beat themselves very often. That's a key thing. If you think about the fundamentals of this game, you think about how they have long-term success in a program and there's a toughness to their program that sticks out and that's a key to long-term success. The special teams play sticks out. That's a key too long-term success. Consistent performance, they do a great job in that area. Very well coached. Don't make a lot of mistakes. You run the football well, you stop the run. That make it's tough on teams. They don't give up a lot of explosive plays schematically and from their discipline on defense.

So, a lot of things all kind of add to the reason why they're good every year. So that's something that you look at. And their player development, they get guys, they kind of have prototypical guys at each spot per their height and weight. Different numbers maybe every year but similar results. So that's just a sign of a consistency there and a program that's been in place for a long time, a staff that's been in place for a long time.

So that's why I say we have a lot of respect for us. As the head coach at Indiana and what we're attempting to build here every single year, to have a consistency that no matter who is out there each given year they play at a certain standard and that's what you see from them. There's a reason why some are picking them to win the [Big Ten] West [Division] and it's kind of seemed that way every year. They're always in the conversation. Hats off to them and we got to be able to play really good [this Saturday].

On if he enjoys the expectation talk around the program and if any former players have reached out during the lead up to the season…
TA: I would say there's been a lot of messages, a lot of excitement within our alumni base, about our program and where we are and the direction that we're going. So, yeah, that's been super awesome to have that. Appreciate their engagement and their excitement. Guys that Vaughn Dunbar is a young man that came by last weekend, and I knew who he was, he's a year older than me, knew him out of high school and [played football at Indiana], but never met him before. He was just a great, great player here, without question. But just to hear him talk about the program and how excited he is and got a chance to see the facilities he hadn't been back in a while, and just talked about, man, would love to be able to be here at this time and be a part of what's going on. Then even the locker room and the way it looks, it's so different than when he played and even the way the stadium looks and feels. So, hats off to our administration for what they have invested in football.

So, guys like that, but, yeah, there's definitely a lot of that and that's awesome and but the expectations are what they are. Like we said in the beginning, we came here with a vision to be able to change the expectations and create belief. That process is ongoing and so we're embracing it. You have to be able to have those earmuffs and blinders, that part doesn't change, and to be able to create the focus that you want to be able to be an elite performer on game day.

On his team's ability to create turnovers…
TA: Well, I think you get what you emphasize. We emphasize so much about takeaways. We have three [things we talk about], we call it our DNA on defense, and we have a DNA for offense, defense and special teams. So, the DNA on defense is takeaways, tackling and effort. And takeaways is the very first one. It's been that way since I've been here and I believe in that.

So, we just work on it. If you come to our practice they're going to be doing something with takeaways every single day. We say we install that mindset every single day and there are multiple layers to it. There's the pressure up front that you have to use to create those opportunities and quarterbacks, if they have time to throw and they get in rhythm and they can step up into their throws and do that on time they're hard to get. But if you can get them off their spot, you can get them to move around, make them feel uncomfortable mentally and physically it's affecting the quarterback, that's a big variable.

So, it's the pressure up front which affects the quarterback and then the mental affecting of the quarterback is how you can disguise your coverages, the things that you're doing in the back end. And then there's ball skills, you have to catch the ball. So, we work on ball skills every day. We tell them, they're not on defense because they can't catch, they're on defense because they're great athletes and they can create the takeaways. We say they are created; they don't just happen by chance.

I get it, certain years you get more than others and there's been years where we worked on them, and we don't ever work on them any less, and I'll take them anyway we can get them, whether they're fumbles or interceptions, we just want to get the ball from their offense and give it to our offense. I just think that there's a lot of reasons for us creating those and they're big and that's how you win football games. You have to protect [the football] on offense and you have to be able to create the takeaways on defense.

On Micah McFadden and Ty Fryfogle being undervalued by the recruiting services...
TA: That's great question to ask as far as how were they not given more recognition in high school? I guess there's a lot of reasons for that. You have a guy like Micah who did play in a high-profile high school program. The benefit that I had was my son played with him, so I got to watch him practice. When I was at USF the way everything worked in regard to my schedule, I had the Tampa Bay area as my recruiting area. So that was one unique thing, I never left the state to recruit. I really hardly never left for recruiting for my area, I didn't leave the Tampa Bay area. And they practiced at night … and because I was a dad, I was allowed to be there as much as I wanted to be.

And so literally, I would go do my recruiting during the daytime as the DC there and then I would go at night and sit up in the press box with their video guy and watch practice. So just got to see him play a lot. I thought he was a really good player. I was actually shocked that he didn't get more highly recruited.

I will say this, he was a guy that, probably my first year that Thomas was there, he wasn't getting to play that much, which is maybe a little unusual for a guy that goes on to be what he's become, for sure. But then Thomas's senior year which would have been Micah's junior year it started to click for him. And what I noticed him on was special teams. That's where I noticed just a nose for the ball. Covering kicks, covering punts. And I think it's -- and I learned that from [Indiana Football Hall of Fame] coach [Richard] Dullaghan years ago, there's two sides to that. So he used to always tell me that if you want to find out who your good running backs are, and we did this with our sophomores when they came to the varsity for the first time, we just kick them the ball and just see how they handle making people miss. Same way on covering kicks. You find who how out who your linebacker and safeties are by who can cover kicks. I never forgot that.

So, I would watch him on special teams, and you could just see who's got a knack to get to the guy with the ball. And that's why I say it's a simple game. If you got the ball in your hands you have to make guys miss and go score. On defense you have to find the guys that have the football and get them on the ground. And I thought Micah had a knack for that and he just kept playing better and better. Yet still he never got a lot of [scholarship offers]. He was probably maybe a little undersized, you know, but I didn't care. I knew he was good, and we went ahead and pulled the trigger on him and never wavered with it.

Then with Ty it was that he's from a really small high school in south Mississippi, not a lot of people go down there to watch him. Coach Heard had a chance to watch him, have him in camp when he was at Ole Miss and so he believed in him, even though he once again was not a highly recruited or ranked guy. He took a little longer when he got here to kind of figure some things out but always had really good ball skills and just kept getting stronger and faster.

I just think sometimes it's a matter of having that gut where you think a kid's got something to him. You say both of them are tough guys, both of them are actually pretty quiet and they love to work. I think you kind of get those core things you look for in guys and they fit with us character wise and got to know their families and believed they were really high-quality young men that were going to come here and do everything we asked them to do and they just bought in and they took off.

I guess it's a great story. It's a great testament to these young men and how hard they have been willing to work and to our coaching staff to kind of know some key things you want to look for in a young man and when you find that you trust your evaluation and you have to kind of not fall victim to the recruiting rankings. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're not, but recruiting is not an exact science. Anybody that acts like they got it figured out, they're not being honest. It's hard to project sometimes. But you just got to trust your gut and press on.

On if he thinks tackling is an issue early in the season because of the NCAA's practice rules…
TA: Yeah, interestingly enough when you looked at those rules we went back and look at our last two years of practice and we did not have to modify anything to meet the standards or those requirements. We have only ever had two full scrimmages since I've been here in regard to where you had a whole time of just live tackling in the scrimmage situation. Then, the number of practices that we had that were considered tackle practices or portions of that.

The good news is I think we have already, I've become a believer in that, trying to keep guys up, keep guys healthy, we try to emphasize tackling either bags or tackling sleds or whatever things that you can do with different mechanisms. Especially last year, we were trying to even do that because of COVID and trying to eliminate the individual contacts of guys when we were kind of in the beginning stages of trying to figure out COVID. But even 2019 we kind of had a similar [practice plan].

I feel good about that, but I think you always are going to find that in week one tackling is always a little bit of a concern. I think you always worry about that, because especially when you're playing such a good running back and then some receivers that have some escapability on their team. But hopefully on our side we got that same benefit against them.

I think that you just got to work on it as much as you can and within the rules that you got. Like I say, I feel good about what we were able to do compared to what we have done in the past. But to me, hopefully because we have more guys that have played -- I remember two years ago when this group was playing in 2019 our first game of the season we had way too many missed tackles in that first game there in Lucas Oil Stadium, but I remember Micah was one of them, had a lot of missed tackles. He was younger then, two years younger. For sure, but hopefully the experience and the reps and all the things we have done we have worked so hard to try, within those rules, because you got to be, the second DNA that we talk about on defense after takeaways is tackling. We want to be the best tackling team in America. We just have to keep working on it and we'll continue to do that because we won't live tackle the rest of the season except on game day.

Q. On Jaren Handy and Ryder Anderson fit in to the defensive…
TA: Yeah, I think first of all really the maturity and leadership of Ryder is what sticks out. The physical maturity. He's a big man. Not only tall, but just he's thick and strong. And I think he's provided what I hoped he would when he came here and that was to a position group that did not have a lot of strong leadership in terms of just guys that were confident to speak. A lot of good guys, but none of them that were willing to speak up. And for him to come in here with a new team and it helped that he came in during the January period, but so he's provided that. And then just steady play, just consistency and understanding football. And the hope is that he just elevates that room and I think we have seen that and the in the preparation, but obviously it matters what they do on game day.
And then as far as with Stone, I mean it's just an athleticism that he has naturally. We actually had them by position groups come to our house over the summer and we had the whole D-line over there. We were playing basketball there in our driveway and fortunately we purchased one of those I think it's a Gorilla basketball, so it's very sturdy, I guess that's my point, with like a breakaway rim. Because if we had not, he would have completely destroyed our basketball hoop the way he dunked the ball so violently and athletically multiple times.
So, our [basketball] goal survived, but I left there just kind of like, 'whoa, that's different.' But, he's still young and just trying to learn a system. It's new for him and everything, but I think that rushing the passer, both those guys, are what you want them to be, stopping the run, being physical guys. They have length, both of them are tall and long and with Stone definitely the athleticism is what sticks out when you see him play. So that's something that we need in this program. We just talked about being able to affect the quarterback, that's the number one job that you want to do defensively and being able to physically do that.

So that's really where those guys are. I need them to just keep buying in and playing hard and practicing hard and getting better every single week.

On if Michael Penix Jr. is the starting quarterback and if there are things he will continue to do during the season to rehab…
TA: Yeah, I would say more let it go. We definitely didn't announce it. I guess that, to answer your question though, it's a good question, about the process that you go through. Yeah, I mean, there was the expectation that he would be ready, but he had to get ready, and he's done that. So yeah, he will be the starter on Saturday.

That was the expectation from the beginning if he did what he was supposed to do. Now there's no doubt it could have not been the case based if things didn't go the way you wanted them to or whatever happens along the process. There's no guarantees with that.

As far as naming for the team, we never really had to say that. But at the same time, we have had opportunities for Jack [Tuttle] to take reps with the one's which he's done that consistently throughout camp and to make sure both guys are ready and then obviously getting Donaven McCulley ready as well, just because you have three guys there that I believe all have special skill sets. So, bottom line is that Michael's been doing a great job and the things we have asked.

And to your question about throughout the season it's more of a maintenance part of that. In fall camp there was a lot of conditioning emphasis and doing specific things to continue to rehab. The rehab part of it, I think the main part, just like any other guy that's injured, you go through that. But from a conditioning perspective, no, won't be doing those extra things. You just continue to maintain the exercise that you do. We do things, a lot of guys have things that they do. Oftentimes it happens pre-practice and post-practice which will be the same case with him. More of that probably than during practice. So that will be a continuous part of his process like other guys are coming back from either ACL surgeries or either, with Thomas and his hip surgery he has things he has to keep doing and will continue to do throughout the season.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
_{111952-1-1044 2021-08-30 16:31:00 GMT}

Indiana University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Ryder Anderson

Stephen Carr

David Ellis

Ty Fryfogle

Jaren Handy

Peyton Hendershot

Cam Jones

Marcelino McCrary-Ball

Donaven McCulley

Micah McFadden

Michael Penix Jr.

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