BLOOMINGTON – Indiana football coach Tom Allen said the Hoosiers have entered the restart of fall camp this week with a heightened sense of urgency.

IU will open the season either Oct. 23 or Oct. 24 at Memorial Stadium against No. 10 Penn State, arguably the second-best team in the Big Ten behind defending conference champion Ohio State.

“There is no ramping up on your schedule this year,” Allen said.

The tricky part the next four weeks will be creating enough opportunities for contact while adhering to health and safety protocols due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news? IU has conducted more than 1,200 COVID-19 tests since daily testing began Sept. 21 with just one positive, which was neither a football player nor a full-time staff member.

Allen said IU players won’t go into shoulder pads until Wednesday and won’t do a full pads practice until the first scrimmage Saturday. Subsequent scrimmages will take place Oct. 10 and the week before the season opener.

“We have to tackle and we have to block live,” Allen said. “We will have officials here for that. It probably will not be in the stadium as it normally is, so there will be a little modification with that because of the number of individuals on the field that we are able to have at this time. Within the realm of it being a different situation, I want to create as much live football as we can that we feel like our bodies and our team are ready for.”

The crispness of tackling has been a concern throughout the country as some conferences have already started playing this month. Missed tackles were noticeable in several Southeastern Conference games as the league started its season Saturday.

“The tackling part of it is what it is,” Allen said. “We have not been allowed to be in pads. The entire conference is in the same rules, but we will all start being in pads Wednesday as a collective group. We will make sure we are working on tackling as much as we possibly can without getting too many guys dinged up.”

The Hoosiers did some 7-on-7 work last week. Allen said he will get a better feel for team depth this week but has already been pleased with what he has seen from some new additions on the offensive line, mentioning JUCO transfers Luke Haggard, Chris Bradberry and Stanford grad transfer Dylan Powell.

“I will know more as this week plays itself out,” Allen said. “The defensive line continues to be … the mass of those guys that we use to continue to keep those guys healthy and fresh will be a priority. I think we have seen growth there as well. Those two positions are the ones we went into fall camp with the most concern about, but I feel a little better about both at this time.”

Another area Allen said he’s trying to emphasize is special teams after noticing several special teams miscues throughout the country. The team has held special teams meetings each morning, going through videos of different scenarios, including kick coverage and fielding onside kicks.

“Special teams is probably the biggest thing that we have capitalized on in some different situations,” Allen said. “Also, clock management and going through as a staff and talking about how to manage games and how we would handle a certain situation if it happened to us.

“We are just trying to learn, all the time. We encourage our guys to watch as much football as they can. Once we finish practice on Saturdays and get the film broken down, we all go do the same thing. We have to capitalize and learn from watching the game being played because we are going to be in that position really soon.”