Indiana coach Tom Allen defends fourth down call at goal line: 'I don't second guess that'

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana football coach Tom Allen knows what play the Hoosiers fanbase will be talking about in the coming days.

Allen's team had a chance to tie the game in the final minutes of a 21-14 loss to Louisville on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium, but came up empty-handed at the goal line.

Indiana needed less than a yard after a diving effort from quarterback Tayven Jackson at the pylon set up a fourth and one.

The Hoosiers scored in a similar situation earlier in the half on a handoff to Josh Henderson up the middle. The 5-foot-11, 215-pounder tried to dive over the top when the coaching staff went back to the play in the fourth quarter but was stuffed at the line of scrimmage by Louisville defensive back Aaron Williams and didn't come close to crossing the goal line.

More: Grading Indiana football's 21-14 loss to Louisville

Indiana finished the game with 58 rushing yards (2.1 yards per carry). It was the 14th time they had less than 100 rushing yards going back to 2021.

"It's frustrating," Allen said. "That's one I'm sure everyone is going to focus on, but there's a lot of variables to that."

Allen made it sound like a quarterback sneak was discussed.

The call would have made a lot of sense given Jackson's 6-foot-3, 215-pound frame. Jackson's athleticism was on display throughout the second half as he extended plays in the pocket and avoided pressure with his legs. While he didn't have a ton of success in the game running the ball — he had eight carries for 11 yards — most of his designed runs came out of the shotgun.

Jackson was right over the goal line when he took the snap from under center on that final offensive play.

"I don't second guess that," Allen said. "I mean, goodness, you got to just execute. You got the ball at the six-inch line, you got to knock them off the football and go score. I don't care what you call. If you choose to do something with a little riskiness to it, but we didn't execute obviously."

Louisville coach Jeff Brohm said the presence of Henderson in the backfield instead of the speedy Jaylin Lucas tipped them off that a handoff inside was coming.

"We worked on our goal-line package," Brohm said. "We had a lot of big bodies in there. We stemmed (shifted) at the last minute, trying to get them to snap it early. I don’t know if it affected them a little bit or not. I thought we got in there. Because of the stem and movement, we got in there quick, and we penetrated and stopped the run and did a great job with it. That’s not easy to do, so that’s just all-out effort and good coaching from our defensive coaches. We had to have it to win."

Indiana didn't get the ball back after turning the ball over on downs with 4:38 to go.

The bulk of Allen's frustration in the post-game press conference about the offense was on what he described as "self-inflicted wounds" that killed some promising early drives. The Hoosiers had to punt twice in the first half after crossing midfield.

"Got to play two halves of football," Allen said.

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: IU coach Tom Allen defends goal line handoff after loss to Louisville