Indiana Changes Practices: Less Reps vs Scout Team, More 'Good-On-Good' Competition

Following their 44-17 loss to Maryland, the captains of the Indiana football team met with coach Tom Allen and told him about a structural change they wanted to make to practices to perform better during the second half of the season.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — After the loss to Maryland, Noah Pierre sent a text to four other players on the Indiana football team: Mike Katic, Cam Camper, Andre Carter and Aaron Casey. 

Those four, plus Pierre, are the five captains coach Tom Allen appointed for the 2023 Indiana football team. They weren't satisfied with where the team was after the 44-17 loss in College Park, and they agreed something needed to change. 

That acknowledgement ultimately led to a players-only meeting on Sunday for the Hoosiers. Afterward, the captains met with coach Tom Allen and presented the change they wanted to make — less reps in practice against the scout team. They wanted more battles between the first and second team on Indiana's depth chart during weekdays leading up to the game. Allen agreed, and that's what IU plans on doing the rest of the season.

"We came into the season with a sense of urgency, and I wanted to get back to that," Pierre said, explaining why he reached out to the other captains on the team. "I didn't want guys to lose hope when we dropped a few games, which [was] not something we really expected to do."

"It'll just give us the speed of the game, help us prepare for the game. When you're going against scouts, you don't really get that whole feel of the game, so going against the one's (first team), being able to get that good-on-good, will get us back to playing fast. It helps [us] with starting faster."

Noah Pierre says #IUFB had a players-only meeting last Sunday, organized by the team captains just one day after the Maryland loss. pic.twitter.com/0iQgO8S9wW

— Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) October 10, 2023

Poor starts have defined the 2023 Indiana football team in its four games vs FBS competition. 

Ohio State, Louisville, Akron and Maryland put up a combined 35 points in first quarter against the Hoosiers, compared to just three points by Indiana. The team hopes that by going against better competition on a daily basis, they'll get a better feel for the speed and physicality of a real-game setting. They sensed that the team's urgency and energy had dipped since the first week of the season, and they wanted to get it back. 

"Coming out of fall camp, we were really ready and really prepared for Ohio State," Katic said, echoing his fellow team captain. "Because we [were] going against the [first team] defense, the good-on-good, all fall camp. That's the reasoning behind [the switch]."

Neither Katic nor Pierre said any of this to disparage the Indiana scout team. But they're also cognizant of the reality — the first team and second team offense and defense provide better, more game-like reps throughout the week. They call it "good-on-good" for that reason. 

"There's nothing against the scout team. The scout team does such a great job giving us looks and everything. But it's that more live feel with the defense," Katic said. "That's all it really is. That's what the captains' meeting was about. I'm looking forward to getting more of those kinds of reps."

And it wasn't just the captains. This is what the whole Indiana football team wanted. They want to stop starting games slowly, and they think more good-on-good reps is the way to achieve that. 

"We had a players only meeting, and that was a common thing that kept coming up," Pierre said. "Guys just wanted to be able to compete against each other. It was a team effort; we all spoke about it. It's not something that I came up myself. Guys wanted to get that full speed, that full sense of urgency that we had coming out of camp, so just getting back to that."

Everyone will have to wait to see if this big structural change to practice will work for the Hoosiers. Katic said that Tuesday was the first time it had been implemented. The urgency IU brought to the Ohio State game kept getting referenced, and on Saturday, they're facing Michigan, the lone team on their schedule perhaps more fearsome than Ohio State. 

Indiana will have just a few more practices with more good-on-good reps, and less against the scout team, to prepare for their toughest test of the season to date. 

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