The Indiana football program was back on the practice field on Thursday as it officially kicked off its fall camp. With less than a month away from a week one matchup with Wisconsin, IU now finds itself looking at a much more difficult start to the season than before. Because of that, it's critical to have a very fundamentally sound three weeks leading up to the start of the season.
Excitement is always something you'll get from head coach Tom Allen, and once again his energy was felt all over the practice field on Thursday.
"Really excited to get back today. Really great to get back on the field with our team," Allen said in a Zoom meeting on Thursday. "We had a chance to do some walkthroughs the last several days leading up to fall camp but there's nothing like getting back out there.
"A lot of really good energy, effort. I loved the focus of our guys. It was very, very evident that those reps allowed us to have a much crisper practice number one. So I'm really encouraged by that. Have a lot of really hungry guys that love being around each other."
While practice is always critical, it becomes even more important the rest of the summer and early fall because of the lack of work they have been able to do over the past few months. However, COVID still has programs putting restrictions on certain aspects of the day-to-day schedule.
"We've been doing more smaller groups, isolated individual things… trying to maximize field space," Allen said. "We have protocols we have to follow on number of guys on the field, in the room, practice facility which has been challenging. Hours and hours and hours went into setting up for practice and we had to scrap all of that. Really been an interesting set of weeks leading up to this. But it's great to be back."
Since Tom Allen took over the Indiana program in 2016, he has taken the program to new heights and the trajectory for the future is much higher than before. Part of that is obviously his ability to get his players to buy in, and once again he will have to dig deep to make sure his team is focused.
"We are going to focus on one thing and that is today. We are going to have a lot of plans... it's going to focus on the short term," Allen added. "We are going to control what we are going to control... We can control our mindset and how we attack every single day. Our word for 2020 is 'relentless' and we are going to relentlessly attack today, our focus, how we prepare."
Allen has always been exceptional in the mental part of the game, but one part of the IU program that has suffered at times is the physical play. Some of that could be chalked up to the coaching staff and schemes, but a lot of it has to do with the practice schedule and also weight training. Trying to make up for lost ground, but also protecting players is something all programs will have to try to master.
"How you maximize reps but listen to the body of your players. One huge blessing for us is that we got Aaron Wellman. He's coming straight from the NFL, he was part of a committee the past five years about training camps and how you prevent injuries and get your team ready for peak performance. Maximize all those things," Allen said. "I'm going to rely on him for all of those things. You can't speed up the physical part... balancing those reps with protecting your players."
Though it's just one practice, Allen notes David Ellis and Miles Marshall as two players he is expecting big things from this season and needs them to step up. Overall, however, this is a team that has Allen very excited.
"I have high expectations for this team. How good will we be? That’s up to them... Many reasons to be excited, the number of guys who have played college football, including areas that are critical... I love our team."
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