LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- LeBron James tweeted about the Indiana University football team Saturday.
Ten more remarkable words have never been written about IU football.
When the 2020 college football season began, King James was more likely to tweet about South Central Pennsylvania Tech than the Hoosiers. On Saturday, like much of the college football world, LeBron wondered if IU could take down his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes.
“It meant a lot,” IU quarterback Michael Penix Jr. said. “It just showed that people see the hard work we’ve been putting in. It’s very encouraging.”
But there’s more. Considerably more.
There was ESPN College GameDay host Race Davis touting the joys of playing football for Tom Allen at Indiana and using Allen’s trademark #LEO hashtag in a tweet.
There was former LSU star Booger McFarland, another ESPN guy, tweeting this:
I wish I could play for Tom Allen.
— Booger (@ESPNBooger) November 21, 2020
There were Joel Klatt, Matt Leinart and Brady Quinn of FoxSports as well as Chris Fowler of ESPN lining up to snap off loving words about the Hoosiers and their dynamic quarterback.
There was Dan Wetzel, the national columnist for Yahoo Sports, tweeting: “If you could buy stock in a college football program, I’d recommend Indiana.”
“Our brand is LEO (Love Each Other),” IU offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan said. “I hope that’s what people think about when they see us play.”
"You got character! You got something to you!"Indiana Football's head coach Tom Allen's stirring post-game speech after coming up short against the Ohio State Buckeyes went viral, as he expressed his pride in the team—win or lose. https://t.co/Wh5EwVKms1 pic.twitter.com/9u8uUVZ223
— ABC News (@ABC) November 23, 2020
There was the ABC News (not sports, news) national feed airing Allen’s postgame speech at Ohio State to his players on its web page.
All of this after the Hoosiers (4-1) lost for the first time this season, 42-35, to the Buckeyes on Sunday.
The takeaway is clear: Allen is building more than a program. Allen is building a brand.
He has positioned himself to be what Howard Schnellenberger was at Louisville, a guy who changes the perception of a program — outside the locker room as well as inside the locker room.
You don’t earn attention from James, Davis, McFarland, ABC News and others because you finished seven points short against the Buckeyes. Many teams have done that through the years, including, believe it or not, Indiana.
Allen has stirred this national buzz because people have watched his players respond to him with emotion, respect and love, qualities often washed away by cynicism and entitlement in major college sports today.
In a time when the IU men's basketball program has gone through four years of blah, Allen has people talking about Indiana football. Basketball can wait. Basketball will start this season in the considerable shadow of IU football.
Four years ago, the world rushed to make fun of Indiana because retired Athletic Director Fred Glass promoted Allen from defensive coordinator to head coach to replace Kevin Wilson.
That was Example No. 1,053 of Indiana being Indiana, thinking small, the way it thought and lived small in football for nearly 50 years.
Allen wasn’t the best choice, he was the convenient choice. Allen wasn’t an inspired choice, he was an inexpensive choice. Allen wasn’t a future star, he was a nobody that James, Davis and McFarland could not have picked out of two-person lineup.
They know who Allen is today. They recognize what he is doing. And they like it. They like it enough to flood social media with praise.
On Monday, I asked Allen if he was aware that the opinion-makers in college football took the time to applaud Indiana over the weekend. He had. In fact, Allen retweeted James, Leinart and Fowler.
I also asked him what he thought people saw from him and Indiana’s performance to earn that response.
“We’re building a program,” Allen said. “Sometimes you lose. We didn’t play our best football, and they played better than we did, and they made more plays than we did.
“But I think what people saw was they saw toughness. They saw resiliency. They saw grit. They saw character.
“I said at halftime (when IU trailed, 28-7), I didn’t know what was going to happen in the second half, but I knew what I expected to happen.”
Indiana U football team was down down big to Ohio State at half time. Coach Tom Allen said the character of his team would show in the 2nd half. After throwing a pick six IU has battled back to trail 43-35 in the 4th Qtr. Can’t wait to see the finish.
— Tony Dungy (@TonyDungy) November 21, 2020
Does that mean Indiana will win even most of its remaining games, starting with Maryland’s visit to Memorial Stadium in Bloomington on Saturday?
Nope.
Does that mean the Hoosiers will not slip and slide many times before they arrive where Allen intends to guide them?
Not at all. Minnesota was the Flavor the Year in the Big Ten last season. Look where the Gophers sit today. It isn’t pretty. Kentucky won 10 games two year ago. The Wildcats will be fortunate to finish 4-6 this fall.
LSU has taken the express lane from undefeated national champion to 3-3.
There are other examples. Many of them. College football is the ultimate shark tank. Indiana will be challenged to maintain what it has done through five games this season. Other programs will open their checkbooks and come after their coaches, perhaps even Allen, after the season. In a time of declining resources, more investment must be made in the program.
But what Allen has done at Indiana is something that the school’s last five head coaches were unable to do:
Show that Indiana football does not have to be a tackling dummy. He has delivered with an unflinching resolve and determined upbeat outlook that the people who create the perception around college football have noticed.
Allen is building more than a football program at Indiana. He’s building a brand.
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