After the best season for Indiana football since 1993, Indiana has seen infrastructure loss larger than its seen since Allen replaced Kevin Wilson as head coach in 2016. But as the Hoosiers enter 2020 spring camp, Allen is asking his program to trust him as it moves forward.
Before Friday afternoon, Indiana head coach Tom Allen had only spoken to the media once since Indiana lost the Gator Bowl on Jan. 2. Almost two months later, Allen, delving into his fourth year as the Hoosiers’ head coach, tripped over himself when he misjudged the amount of time that had passed.
“It's been a few weeks since we've -- more than a few weeks – but glad to be back with you guys and get the chance to see our team get back and play some football,” he said to kick off a press conference inside Memorial Stadium to preview spring practice.
It’s easy to understand the misconception. The two months since the loss to Tennessee in Jacksonville have seemed like a whirlwind for the football program, as Indiana lost its offensive coordinator (Kalen DeBoer), its defensive line coach (Mark Hagen), its special teams coordinator (William Inge), its veteran quarterback (Peyton Ramsey), its senior left tackle (Coy Cronk), a former four-star running back (Ronnie Walker) and, most notably, its strength and conditioning coaches (David Ballou and Matt Rhea). Until Friday morning, running back Sampson James also had his name in the transfer portal, and record-setting tight end Peyton Hendershot remains suspended.
It wasn’t until after the James news was reported that morale surrounding the program seemed to be at its lowest, and amidst the unrest, Allen sent a tweet Tuesday that read, “We don’t blink.”
“No matter what happens, if something happens good, if something happens bad, we don't blink,” Allen said. “Yeah, we've had some change. We don't blink. We've had some guys make some mistakes. You don't blink. You have things that happen that you don't expect. You don't blink. And we talk that way with our guys. So when I sent that out, they knew exactly what I was talking about because we talk about it a lot in our program.”
The phrase itself isn’t necessarily original, but the path Allen walked to discover the motivational tool was. When he arrived at Ole Miss in 2012, the idea of the “landsharks,” as Ole Miss used to refer to its defense, had been all but retired. In order to revive that part of the program’s defensive culture, Allen researched sharks and discovered that they don’t have eyelids. He’s been using “We don’t blink” as a coaching tool ever since, even if “landsharks” are specific to Ole Miss.
“I just think it's a great life principle, because when you start flinching and start worrying about things going on around you, you're not very effective,” Allen said. “This program does not blink.”
The only way to proceed without blinking is to trust the leader of the program, and that’s what Allen has asked of his players and staff. He hasn’t given them reason to not trust him. He hired on DeBoer, Ballou, and Rhea and still has foundational coaches he’s hired into the program, like defensive coordinator Kane Wommack, offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan and running backs coach Mike Hart. Allen has taken a program that was on the rise and continued the incline.
He said he asked his players and coaches in the Memorial Stadium team room this week how many of them knew Ballou before he was hired at Indiana. Six of them raised their hands. He asked the same question for Rhea. Only new tight ends coach Kevin Wright, who worked with Ballou and Rhea at IMG Academy, raised his hand.
“Two years ago, pretty much, nobody knew those guys in this room,” Allen said. “We found them, and we brought them here, and they did a phenomenal job. So I said, ‘I'm just going to ask you to trust me.’ . . . I learned a long time ago, you hire great people, you just aren't going to keep them forever.”
Now, Indiana is moving forward into its next stage of the offseason, a welcomed change to its offseason, with a new safeties coach (Jason Jones), a new tight ends coach (Kevin Wright), a new defensive line coach (Kevin Peoples), a starting quarterback pinned and the youngest coordinating duo in the Big Ten, but with people Allen trusts.
He’s now seeking the same trust in return.
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