What Tom Allen Said After Indiana's 21-14 Loss to Louisville

The Indiana Hoosiers dropped to 1-2 on Saturday following a 21-14 loss to Louisville inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. After the game, coach Tom Allen spoke to media about the defeat.

Daniel Olinger | Sep 16, 2023

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Indiana Hoosiers

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Coach Tom Allen and the Indiana Hoosiers fell just short inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Saturday.

After trailing 21-0 at the half, an onside kick and an inspired second half performance from quarterback Tayven Jackson nearly led the team all the way back. But trailing 21-14, the Hoosiers failed on a fourth-and-goal play on their final drive, and ultimately lost to the coach Jeff Brohm and the Louisville Cardinals.

Here's everything coach Allen had to say after the 21-14 loss:

Opening statement

Allen: "Just want to start by saying that our hearts are heavy with the loss of Marty Clarke from our program and university. Had such a tough battle the past couple years, and he's just such a fighter, and just prayers for his family. Want to be there for them during this time. He was a very, very special person."

"Just proud of our football team, but you got to play two halves of football. I was really disappointed in our first half performance. Gave up big plays on defense, and too many self-inflicted wounds offensively in the first half."

"But proud of our team's fight. Really didn't have any momentum going into halftime, and the guys bowed up and showed a lot of fight to shut them out in the second half and give ourselves a chance offensively to win the game."

"Got a lot of work to do. Got a young quarterback that can make plays and is growing up, and there's going to be some growing pains with that. But at the same time, you can see what he can become. Got to build our team around the positives, and got to continue to battle and fight, because this team has character, and we just got to get better."

On Tayven Jackson

Allen: "You can see him growing up throughout [the game]. There's some things you don't always see [for him], especially in the first half, just mistakes [from] being young, with the clock, formations, guys in motion and things like that. Those things will continue to get better."

"But I just love the fact that he makes plays. He's able to create, extend plays, eyes downfield and finding receivers, and those are things [where] you can't teach that. That's just an instinctual thing that he has. He's got a lot of confidence, a lot of moxie, that's one of his strengths. Those things are showing up, and we're just trying to find a way [for him] to move us down the field."

On the fourth-and-goal play call

Allen: "You could run a quarterback sneak. Could run a base power power play. Obviously we chose to run not the sneak. Obviously since it didn't work, you'd want to run the other one. We scored previously on the other one. But yeah, it didn't work, so obviously I wish we'd done something else."

"But I don't second guess that, you got to execute. You got the ball on the six-inch line, knock them off the ball and go score. I don't care what you call if you run the football. But we didn't execute it obviously, and that's frustrating."

"That's the one I'm sure everyone is going to focus on, but there were a lot of other variables leading up to that one. Since the play didn't work, I wish we would have called something else. But I love our coaches, love our team and we just got to keep getting better."

On the decision to go for the onside kick

Allen: "I thought we moved the ball [in the first half], we just thought we hurt ourselves offensively with self-inflicted mistakes. And then defensively, I thought we just gave up some big plays, and we just can't do it. I didn't think we defended the run very well in the first half either. Which is why I chose to not go for it on fourth down there and just punt the ball, get out of the half and regroup."

"Because I was planning on kicking an onside kick to start the second half. Because I knew we had to kickoff, and I thought we had a shot to get it if the opportunity presented itself. That's a decision where we went into halftime, and probably made that decision within one or two minutes."

"We actually had repped it two previous times that week, and that's one of those deals where I have a situation with Kasey (Teegardin), where I say, 'If we're going to do something like that, I got to see it executed in practice.' So if we hadn't of done it well in practice, I wouldn't have called it. But we were two-for-two in practice, and now we're three-for-three."

On what changed for defense in the second half

Allen: "Eye discipline. One of our young corners was the first culprit [in the first half]. He played on a play fake when he was playing deep third, which can't happen. But learning from his mistake in the first half was huge. Just really emphasizing eyes, eyes, eyes."

"To me, it was more just about executing what we were doing. Every coverage has levels to it, and if you're the guy that is supposed to be on top, then you better have the discipline executed, or else you're going to give up double moves and play action passes. Did some things up in the front to help us in the run game too, but I thought coach Guerrieri did a good job making adjustments, as well as coach Bell."

On cancellation of Indiana vs Louisville series

Allen: "In the last six months, the Big Ten has changed a lot. We've added four teams to this conference that has changed the landscape of the Big Ten, and we have to adjust accordingly. We just have to do what's best for our football program."

On what Louisville did to slow down Indiana's pass rush

Allen: "They did a real good job of this [Allen then held up his hands in a way to indicate offensive holding]."

Tom Allen was frustrated by the lack of holding penalties called against Louisville's offensive line. / Indiana Athletics

"I was really frustrated with the lack of that being acknowledged. We try to just keep try to keep just fighting through it. We called some more things on second downs to give us a better chance to get a pass rush on those play actions. But we've got a really good pass rusher in No. 1 [Andre Carter], and I think his jersey right now is ripped almost in half. That's a frustrating thing, but you just got to keep playing."

"We tried to do some things to do a better job keeping edges. A couple of times [Plummer] rolled out and we lost containment, which just can't happen. And that last third down was just a mistake by our back side guy to not contain the quarterback. If he does, it's a throw away or a sack, and we get the ball back at least for a shot any way."

On Jaylin Lucas playing more at receiver

Allen: "You try to maximize an individual's talent and what he can do, and getting him the ball in space is important. Whether it's handing it to him or throwing it to him, so he works really hard on that, and we're going to keep trying to emphasize that."

On what changed from the first half to the second half

Allen: "It speaks to the character of our guys — they fought. I challenged them at halftime. Good chance to see what we are as a football program, and as a team, because every team is different. I believe in the core values of our program, but with all the new faces we have, I want to see these guys fight through adversity, fight through hard things, even if sometimes you create them yourself."

"But how you respond in a game is important, and our guys bowed up and fought, and that's important. We had a great week of practice, and I expected us to play well. Just disappointed that we didn't [in the first half]. Sometimes it's schematic things that you give up, and you continue to do that, and they give you some new looks that you didn't expect."

"But at the same time, I felt like we were ready. I just think we didn't execute consistently on either side of the ball and on key situations. Third downs on defense and then just overall offensively in the first half to be able to finish those drives. We had some good drives, we just didn't finish those drives to at least try and get some field goals and not be down by 21 at halftime."

"But when you got a new group like we do with so many new faces, just to be able to battle through and fight to the end is encouraging, but we just got to play four quarters."

On defensive changes in the second half and Aaron Casey’s impact:

Allen: "Yeah, so to me, it was just some schematic adjustments at halftime, called some different things just to try to take away some things they were doing well in the first half. A couple of it was tackling, we missed a few tackles in the first half, as well, that you can’t do. They got two good running backs, so it was a combination of schematic adjustments, as well as just our guys wrapping up better and running their feet through contact. Aaron Casey is obviously a huge part of that. He continues to play well. We just can’t give up big plays, whether it’s in the run game or the throw game, especially in the pass game in the first half. It starts up front. We’ve got to stop the run and be able to read and react from there."

On Tayven’s progression in being able to avoid the pass rush:

Allen: "Yeah, and I think it’s hard to teach that. I think there’s a lot of instinctual components to that, that a guy has a pocket presence to him that he can feel. He knows where to step up to, and coach Bell does a good job of teaching a lot of those things, but just from my experience, the guy that has the ability to just feel it instinctually is pretty special. So he seems to have that, which is great. It take some stress off the o-line as well, not to be as perfect in those situations, but it’s obviously important to keep him protected and it’s been a big objective for us to do that. We’re doing a solid job of that right now, just got to keep getting better at it because we obviously have receivers that can make plays and there’s several of them. We just got to continue to help them grow. I think he’s a really talented quarterback and he’s a really good football player. Like I said before, he’s only going to get better."