‘It's hard to sleep.’ Indiana football coach Tom Allen feels fanbase’s frustration

BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football coach Tom Allen hasn’t moved onto acceptance quite yet.

Allen told reporters he was “shocked” by the Hoosiers defensive let downs after a 48-45 overtime loss to Illinois. He reiterated the point on Monday less than 48 hours removed from leaving Champaign.

“I didn't see this one coming,” Allen said. “I didn't. There's been a couple weeks where I was concerned about our focus, maybe collectively going into a certain game. But not the case this week. Just really hard to pinpoint for sure the reasons for some of the things.”

More: How bad was Indiana football’s defense in OT loss to Illinois? It doesn't get much worse

Indiana allowed 662 total yards — tied for the second most since a 2013 loss to Wisconsin — and backup quarterback John Paddock became just the fourth quarterback ever to throw more than 500 yards against them.

“It's on me,” Allen said, of his team’s defensive failures. “It's my responsibility. Take full responsibility for that as head coach, and that side of the football must play better and really just didn't get the job done.”

The fact that it wasted one of IU’s best offensive performances of the past three years and career-effort from redshirt freshman quarterback Brendan Sorsby only added to Allen’s frustrations.

Sorsby, who orchestrated a textbook 85-yard drive in the final two minutes to force overtime, had 342 total yards and five touchdowns.

“I was sick about that game and the outcome of that game,” Allen said.

The two trophy games left on the schedule gives Indiana players plenty left to play for, but Allen knows wins in those won’t necessarily quiet the growing discontent among fans about the state of the IU’s football program.

Allen has a 33-47 overall record (18-41 in the Big Ten) with two bowl appearances, but continue to trend in the wrong direction. The Hoosiers are 9-25 since 2021 with a 3-22 conference record and 3-23 record against Power Five opponents.

They are one of just five Power Five programs — Vanderbilt, Stanford, Northwestern and Colorado — with less than 10 combined wins in the last three seasons. Vanderbilt is the only team on the list with fewer conference wins (two) and wins against Power Five opponents (two) than IU during that stretch

More: 'It was a lot of Indiana beating Indiana.' Hoosiers' last stand falls flat vs. Illinois.

“It's hard to sleep,” Allen said. “You lay your head down and you've got a million things going on in your head. You want it so bad for your kids, your players, our families, our coaches, their families, our fans, our university, everybody I represent, you feel all that.”

According to Allen, Indiana is still trying to “adapt and adjust” to the changing landscape of college football. The Hoosiers signed 23 transfers in 2023 and six of those have been full-time starters on defense this season.

“We have a lot of challenges that we have to battle and things you have to go through to get your guys ready to play, then the landscape of college football is now completely different than it's ever been and those challenges have been accelerated here,” Allen said.

Allen remains committed to finding the answers while retaining his "Love Each Other" mantra that he restated on Monday when he told reporters that "being positive is a choice."

"We're going to stay together, keep arms locked and just keep fighting, keep building, and that's what we're going to do," Allen said. "We've got a chance to finish out with two huge trophy games that mean a whole lot to this team, to this program and to this university, and that's the plan."

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on Twitter @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana football coach Tom Allen uneasy about mounting losses as fans