From The Locker Room: Monday Media Availability
Following the bye weekend, IU head coach Tom Allen met with the media on Monday to preview Saturday's upcoming tilt against Georgia Southern.
TheHoosier.com was in-attendance and has quotes plus video below.
Q. Georgia Southern is a triple-option team. When do you start preparing for that? Is that something you work on in spring?
COACH ALLEN: "We did. We started working in the spring when we knew that we were playing them, just to be able to work on different facets of it that they are going to present. They run out of the shotgun which is different than some, but it creates similar challenges.
"So we just have to -- you can't just do it in a couple days. So we've been working on them in the spring and then a little bit in the fall camp. You know, with the creative bye week, we have a chance to get some extra reps against that style last week, as well. It was good."
Q. What's different in combining two parts of that answer, what's different about maybe a triple-option under shotgun, as opposed to what maybe people think of the Georgia Tech, Navy, triple-option? People talk about when you do have that bye week built in, it's a big advantage. How much do you feel like you were able to get accomplished and really doubling down on prep?
COACH ALLEN: "Yeah, I think there's an advantage for sure. If you have a normal week, you really have just two weeks, so you can buy a few extra days of work to get ready. It is different from the shotgun, and we've played against both, and it's more, to me, the timing of the way the play is hit, some of the things that they do are similar. The cutting on the perimeter is probably the biggest challenge, I think, and having gone against Navy and Georgia Tech and the recent history of my coaching, that's been things that we've had to really work on, and sometimes you feel good about your prep, and you get in the game and it's just so much more difficult to defend it than it is in practice.
"So that to me is a big, big challenge for sure, and just the speed of it. Having to have a scout team create the quarterback speed, and then just the assignments and all that that you have to have. Just having them execute the offense at the level they are going to see it on game day is really almost impossible if you don't run that style of offense, which we obviously don't. So it always is going to take a series or two to get used to that speed of it. I just think that, that's why people run it. It creates challenges, and they will be difficult to stop."
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