Indiana Football: 3 takeaways from bowl-clinching win over Nebraska

1. Tom Allen is quietly building something special

Let’s be straight about a few things. First, Indiana University always has been and will always be regarded as a basketball school. It’s always interesting to see a basketball school devote resources to try to be good at football — insert Kentucky and Duke here.

In all likelihood, they’ll never win the Big Ten unless half the teams at the top are on postseason probation and having down seasons. However, Indiana has found it profitable for their university to make an effort to be good at football, and they’ve found the perfect coach in Tom Allen.

Allen has put a fence around the state of Indiana. The state of Indiana doesn’t produce Power Five level players a the rate of most of their Great Lakes neighbors, but when they do, they are really good — insert Rondale Moore and Austin Mack here. Coach Allen has made a concerted effort to keep as many of the top players from the state in the state as possible.

In his last three recruiting cycles, Allen has gotten five of the top prospects from the state each year save one. He might not land all of them, but if he can get 60-70 percent of them, mission accomplished.