Indiana Hoosiers Football: Roster Set To Be At Full Strength By Fall Camp
Although the start of fall camp is more than two months away, Indiana head coach Tom Allen feels good about the health of his team leading into it and coming out of spring ball.
"We don't have anybody that's on schedule to miss fall camp, so we should be 100 percent," Allen told TheHoosier.com during an extended 1-on-1 interview last week. "I mean, things happen, I get that. But everybody's on schedule to be fully released by fall camp, recovered from surgeries, whether those were after the season or during spring or whatever."
Those who were limited or sat out parts of spring practices mostly fell on the offensive side of the ball.
Senior left tackle Coy Cronk, redshirt senior right guard Simon Stepaniak and sophomore running back Stevie Scott sat out the Hoosiers' April 12 spring game as healthy scratches. Transfer quarterback and redshirt freshman Jack Tuttle had what Allen called a "short-term" illness that kept him out of the final week of spring ball, while redshirt freshman quarterback Michael Penix Jr. was limited to skelly work as he continued rehabbing his knee injury. Junior wide receiver Whop Philyor's nagging ankle injury from the fall limited him to 7-on-7 work in the spring in order to better manage the recovery process for that.
On the other side of the ball, defensive ends Gavin Everett and Allen Stallings were recovering from unspecified injuries most of spring.
All told, the number of players navigating actual health setbacks is fairly low, according to Allen.
"I meet with our medical staff pretty much everyday," Allen said. "It's a small group of guys right now, which is good. You never know how those things can play out, but right now there's nobody that's scheduled to miss any of fall camp."
Allen attributes IU being in this position - having the majority of the team healthy - to the collaboration between its strength and conditioning coaches and its medical staff.
It also helps that Director of Athletic Performance David Ballou and Athletic Performance Coach Dr. Matt Rhea, the leaders of the strength and conditioning program, have a well-regarded reputation of knowing out to prevent injuries.
Beyond their efforts, Allen also worked with IU Athletics Director Fred Glass to hire a physical therapist onto the medical staff.
"I think we have a really good communication between our medical staff and our strength more than ever before," Allen said. "They work really well together. We've hired a physical therapist, which is a new component to our medical staff that had not happened in the past. That's been a full of year of that now, and I think that's really made a huge difference in getting our guys recovered and getting them fully back to 100 percent. That's a commitment that Fred Glass has given to us and helped us with. So all those things matter."
Just like unforeseen injuries in the summer, Allen realizes there's no way to completely get rid of them. However, as things stand heading into individual workouts this summer, he has every reason to be pleased with how close the Hoosiers are to full strength.
"They're always going to be part of the game," Allen said. "You can't eliminate them, but to reduce them has been one of our objectives. Hopefully that's an outgrowth of that."
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