BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football coach Tom Allen admitted Monday he started preparing to face Georgia Southern during spring football.
That’s what happens when you face a team that runs the triple-option. It’s something that is difficult for your scout team to replicate. It’s even more difficult against a team like Georgia Southern because it runs the triple-option out of the shotgun.
“We started working in the spring when we knew that we were playing them, just to be able to work on different facets of it that they are going to present,’’ Allen said. “They run out of the shotgun, which is different than some, but it creates similar challenges.’’
Indiana (1-1) will play host to Georgia Southern (0-2) Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Memorial Stadium.
Because of the cancellation of last week’s game with Florida International, Indiana in essence picked up an early bye week in the schedule. Interestingly, Georgia Southern had scheduled its bye for last week, meaning both teams have had two full weeks to prepare for the other.
“We’ve been working on them in the spring and then a little bit in the fall camp,’’ Allen said. “You know, with the creative bye week, we had a chance to get some extra reps against that style last week as well. It was good.’’
Georgia Southern’s two losses have come from opposite ends of the spectrum. It lost its opener to No. 15 Auburn, 41-7 before dropping a 22-12 decision to FCS opponent New Hampshire in Week 2.
After gaining just 78 yards of total offense against Auburn, the Eagles had 326 against New Hampshire.
Georgia Southern is led by redshirt freshman quarterback Shai Werts, who has carried the ball 54 times in two games out of the triple-option.
“He has not had a lot of game experience, but the film quickly shows what kind of athlete he is, and that’s the case across the board,’’ Allen said. “They have great team speed, on offense, special teams and defense. We saw tremendous speed from Ohio State, and so I’m not going to put them at that level, but, for sure, they have a lot of speed and a lot of very good athletes, and he’s definitely one of them. They want the ball in his hands, and that’s what their offense is made for.
“So he’ll definitely be somebody we have to do a tremendous job of accounting for and tackling well and affecting him like we affect all quarterbacks, but it’s still different when he’s running the option.’’
Allen said he has faced option teams like Navy and Georgia Tech in recent years, and the Georgia Southern look out of the shotgun is definitely different. He said a lot of it has to do with the timing of the play.
“The cutting on the perimeter is probably the biggest challenge, I think, and having gone against Navy and Georgia Tech that have been the things that we’ve had to really work on. And sometimes you feel good about your prep, and you get in the game and it’s just so much more difficult to defend it than it is in practice.
“So that to me is a big, big challenge for sure, and just the speed of it.’’
Allen said the hardest thing about facing a triple-option attack is trying to replicate it in practice.
“You’re trying to have a scout team create the quarterback speed, and then just the assignments and all that you have to have,’’ Allen said. “Just having them execute the offense at the level they are going to see it on game day is really almost impossible if you don’t run that style of offense, which we obviously don’t.
“So it always is going to take a series or two to get used to that speed of it. I just think that, that’s why people run it. It creates challenges, and they will be difficult to stop.’’