Indiana head football coach Tom Allen has heard all the buzz and seen all the projections surrounding his team heading into the 2021 season.
After a breakthrough 2020 campaign that featured wins over Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State for the first time in school history, a win at Wisconsin, a top 10 ranking and back-to-back January bowl berths, Allen understands many outside the program are thinking Indiana will experience success this season based off of last year's accomplishments.
Such is not the case Allen says, and he drove that point home this week during media availability.
"One thing I think people misunderstand from one season to the next is you just assume because we came close in the fourth quarter against Ohio State, you can’t fall into that trap. You have to recreate that culture, work harder. We have certain goals to chase. Do I expect us to compete for a Big Ten championship? Absolutely. That is what we are chasing after. To get there it is going to be a lot of hard work and a lot of things we haven’t done before in the offseason. Excited, but we have to keep building. I want this football team to be great and when you play in the Big Ten, greatness is defined by one thing and that is winning a Big Ten championship," Allen said.
The 2021 season will feature new expectations, a new defensive coordinator, a new running backs coach, and a mix of familiar and new faces for an Indiana squad that will open the season Sept. 4 at Iowa.
And, the same fire from Allen, who maintains he will continue to push the Hoosiers to achieve greatness on and off the field, as he is not satisfied with back-to-back winning seasons.
"We aren’t going to be better just because we are a year older. We have to work now. We haven’t done anything. We haven’t won the Big Ten East, haven’t won the Big Ten. Have we gotten better? Yes. Have we finished higher? Yes, but we haven’t won a bowl game. Lot of things we haven’t done and to me there's a lot of fire and passion in me to keep building this thing. We have to keep building this thing. Keep developing, keep recruiting, keep believing and that just doesn’t stop. Our one word for 2021 is chase. We are chasing greatness here at Indiana University," Allen said.
The chase begins in Iowa on Sept. 4.
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