Tom Allen is right about Friday night and high school football

If you’re over on Twitter (not calling it by the new name, which is dumb) you probably saw Tom Allen’s rather animated answer to a question during Indiana’s postgame press conference against Ohio State.

If not, here it is:

That drew a lot of reactions. Allen is very, very animated on gamedays and that tends to extend to his postgame press conferences as seen here.

First, there’s an understandable takeaway that he’s complaining specifically about Indiana, that his team deserves better than that scheduling. After putting up just three points, it’s easy why it could be taken that way in that context.

But that’s not the context. The other, majority reaction, was that he’s right. And he is.

First, Allen is a former high school coach in Indiana. He understands what the sport means at that level more than most. Second, Indiana is playing against Indiana State, an in-state FCS team led by a member of the Mallory family, this week.

It’s a bad deal for both schools, not disrespect from the schedule-makers. That’s what Allen is talking about here.

Both the Hoosiers’ and Sycamores’ rosters are filled with former Indiana high school players and both are coached by men with deep ties to the state. With the teams set to play on Friday, that hampers in-state recruiting and takes attention away from high school programs in the state.

Recruits and families who would ordinarily be able to visit Bloomington on gameday will instead be occupied with their own game. Indiana and Indiana State are unable to use this opportunity to get in front of recruits, which is bad for both programs. Fans too will be less inclined to watch this game because of the high school product closer to home.

The only party that benefits from this game is the network broadcasting it getting to sell ad space. What should be a great opportunity for both programs has instead been dashed by a network putting the game on a Friday.

He’s been saying this for years, he doesn’t like Friday games because it hamstrings the programs involved. Every college and high school coach in America would agree with his sentiment here.

I get the urge to dunk, but this is what was meant by it. Not scheduling disrespect as though his program deserves a bigger stage, Friday night games in general. And he’s right about it.