The Big Ten Conference announced last week that it was moving to a conference-only 2020 football schedule and Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said all options remain open with the possibility of postponing the season still in discussion.
For Indiana football coach Tom Allen, despite the recent news, he is still preparing his football team for the upcoming season.
"I'm optimistic about us starting our season. I am," Allen said in a Zoom press conference on Tuesday. "I know that there's a lot of question marks still out there, but I believe that we will start our season. I believe we will start our season on time. I do.
"I do feel like there will be challenges to be able to maintain the season without interruption. I think many people have commented and have many concerns about the possibility of interruptions. I don't think anybody really knows what they're going to look like, so I think you just do what we always do here. That is, you focus on what you know. Right now, we know that we're preparing our football team for the 2020 season."
Beginning on June 8, Indiana began retuning players to campus in waves. With the entire roster officially back, testing became the next step. Thus far, Indiana University has seen success and have had just four positive tests compared to 295 negatives.
"We have 120 players right now that are on campus. All of our coaches have been tested. I'm not going to give out specifics, but I think they said that overall, we've had I think four for the whole athletic department," Allen said. "So, within that number they're not all within our team. They're spread out.
"Bottom line is that testing is an important piece for us right now, and the accuracy of it. We're trusting in that. They've done a great job with it and in the turnaround and everything that we do to keep our guys; if a guy starts having symptoms they'll get tested again."
Recently, the university released a statement regarding what it would do if a scholarship player decided to sit out the year due to COVID related issues and the end result was the scholarship would still be honored. That is something that Allen has discussed with his players and knows could be a possibility as the season gets closer.
"I support that," Allen said. "We talk openly and honestly in our program. Nobody in our program has come to me and said 'Coach, that's what I want to do.' They've asked how that would work if they did choose to do that. Bottom line is we want our athletes and their parents to feel 100 percent confident in them to be in a good situation.
"We'll keep an eye on that and we want them to feel very comfortable with what we're doing. Just being able to help them feel good about it and if they don't, there's things in place for them to be able to not be penalized."
As it stands now, Indiana will travel to Wisconsin for the season opener on Sept 4.
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