COLUMBUS – Indiana head coach Tom Allen met with the media following the Hoosiers’ 42-35 loss to Ohio State on Saturday.
A number of players also answered questions from reporters.
Tom Allen
+ On the fumble at the end of the first half being a critical turning point, Allen said said that was huge. That was a chance for them to score and not only did they not score, but Ohio State got the ball and scored and got the momentum going into half.
+ On Penix as a leader, Allen said as long as there is time on the clock there’s a chance. Penix doesn’t just talk about that, he lives that out. He had tremendous poise. His leadership is pretty special.
+ The tackling was not good, especially on Justin Fields because he is so strong and quick. “A lot of our players couldn’t get him on the ground and that was frustrating.”
+ Ohio State has so much talent on the perimeter. “It’s a catch 22 they put you in because of their talent.”
+ His team stayed the course, had a chance, just weren’t able to do it.
+ He told the team in the locker room that he is proud of the heart, fight, toughness of this team. They truly are special, they just have to play better, but that was a great football team they played. “But to put ourselves in that position, we continued to battle to the very end.”
+ There’s always two or three plays you wish you could get back, the pick-6 was one of those. In a seven point game, those become the difference. “We have to learn from them, correct them, and move forward.”
+ He was concerned about their ability to run the ball against Ohio State and it proved to be true.
+ If they could have got some momentum or points off of the takeaways in the first half that would have been huge.
+ The gap has been closed, but we’re not there yet. We’re working hard to continue to close that. “Since I’ve been here we’ve never had a fourth quarter game with them.” But close isn’t good enough, we came here to win the game.
+ “I think we’re a really good football team. To me it’s about continuing to show and prove on the field that we are one of the top programs in the Big Ten. We haven’t been that in a very long time and I think we’re closer.”
QB Michael Penix
+ It hurts. But they are going to continue to push forward and correct the things that they need to fix.
+ They got more comfortable in the second half and they executed the simple things. They all played hard for each other. They limited mistakes in the second half and started to get the result they wanted.
+ On the number of explosive plays executed in this game, Penix said they just happened as the game went on. It wasn’t something they saw on film from Ohio State,” they didn’t show too much of those, giving up the deep ball.”
+ On the interception to Shaun Wade, “it just wasn’t a good throw.”
+ They have to make the simple plays and limit mistakes. He loves what he saw today, but it hurts that they didn’t get the result they wanted.
+ They showed that Indiana football fights, they leave it all out on the field and that’s what they did. A lot of good things happened but there are things they need to correct and that’s what they’re going to do moving forward.
+ They fought back from being down at halftime but they need to finish and take advantage of opportunities given to them.
+ On the job of his offensive line, he said they work hard every day. They showed that relentless effort and he appreciates them.
WR Ty Fryfogle
+ Michael Penix is very special. He can make any throw on the field, he can do anything. “He’s a great playmaker, I just love Mike.”
+ “It’s very disappointing, we came out sloppy in the first half. This football team will be special when we put four quarters of good football together.”
+ He was moving around everywhere today and was put in good positions to make plays. “But none of that matters when you lose because it’s disappointing.”
+ This team has grown a lot and has a lot of fight in it. Most teams would lay down at the end of the first half after a score like that.
+ They studied a lot of film on the defense because of the different looks Ohio State mixes in, but at the end of the day they didn’t make enough plays.
S Jamar Johnson
+ “We fought hard and we didn’t come up with the result we wanted. But it shows the this team will fight to the end no matter what.”
+ On throwing off Justin Fields, they knew that mixing up the coverage would mix up his reads and would get to him that way. “He likes to look at one receiver, he doesn’t really go through his progressives that much. We were disguising our coverages.”
+ “The defense was heated up in the second half, we were ready.”
+ There were mistakes made in all aspects of the game.
+ The loss last year stuck with them.
+ Ohio State just made more plays than them. “Hats off to Ohio State.”