For Tom Allen and the Indiana football team, the last two seasons on the gridiron have resulted in new heights for the Hoosiers.
In 2019, Indiana made it to a January bowl game, falling short to the Tennessee Volunteers in the Gator Bowl. “In 2019, we did some great things and breakthroughs that hadn’t happen. This year, big win over Penn State and that thrust us into the Top 25 and stayed there and got to the top 10. Challenged guys if you are a top ten program you have to live that way and that is a good issue and problem to have. That’s what I see moving forward,” Allen recently told the media.
The Hoosiers used the motivation of the Gator Bowl loss to rip off six wins in 2020, including three against teams that were ranked in the Top 25 at the time. For the second season in a row, Indiana made it to a January bowl game, falling to Ole Miss 26-20 in the Outback Bowl in a season that was shortened and impacted strongly by the ongoing Covid-19 global pandemic.
“We did not finish the season we wanted to and it’s a big disappointment for myself and an emptiness. I don’t want that one game to take away from the huge wins we experienced and growth in our program and show this country what we can become as a football program. The process is never a straight incline, there’s detours and bumps and things you have to learn from. As many great things that happened, there’s some things to improve on. We have to go back and look at this season. We have to continue to recruit at a high level, develop our players better, maximize everything that will make them the man I want them to become. We have to find ways to run the football better, we gave up too many big plays defensively. There’s things we have to get fixed, get better at and improve our program,” Allen said.
