Zach Osterman

zach.osterman@indystar.com

BLOOMINGTON Brian Knorr has seen what Antonio Allen did on the first day of Indiana University's fall football camp. He just hasn't seen it done very often.

Allen, a Ben Davis alum and safety, lost the second half of last season to a torn anterior cruciate ligament suffered in the Hoosiers' loss at Michigan. In the spring, he learned from a playbook the 3-4 scheme used by Knorr, IU's new defensive coordinator. Full-contact practices were out of the question.

When the Hoosiers assembled to begin the fourth fall camp of coach Kevin Wilson's tenure, Allen — now healthy — took the field with the first-team defense.

"Rarely do you have a guy step in, when he's not in the spring, and run with the ones," Knorr said. "I haven't seen it very often, but I think what he showed us, his commitment to getting back, his commitment to learning the system, has given us confidence that we can run him out there with the ones."

A sure-tackling safety, Allen earned his nickname, "Woo," at Ben Davis because of the audible reactions he'd get for some of his crunching hits. After flipping from Ole Miss to Indiana before his final high school season, Allen brought tantalizing potential to IU's secondary in 2013, even as a freshman.

It was potential he might have realized, if not for that ACL tear. The Michigan game was Allen's first career start. He had nine tackles before injuring his knee.

Allen finished his freshman year with 35 tackles and a recovered fumble.

"It was emotional," Allen said of having his season end prematurely. "I had to just sit back and fight through it and go back into that playbook again."

That playbook changed while Allen was rehabbing.

Indiana parted company with coordinator Doug Mallory after finishing last in the Big Ten in total defense for the third-straight season. Knorr came in, bringing the 3-4 with him.

Because of his youth and that switch, Allen suffered by missing spring practice.

"Because he's a raw player at that position, he really needed the springtime and those 15 practices to improve fundamentally," said Noah Joseph, IU's new safeties coach. "It's hard to gain those 15 practices back."

Cleared at the beginning of May, Allen still had Joseph worried. His coach could see Allen favoring his once-wounded knee, not trusting it implicitly — until mid-June.

"All of a sudden, he transformed and you couldn't tell which knee it was," Joseph said. "He just never looked back."

Now, the 5-10, 205-pound Allen has his coaches buzzing.

He's regained the confidence needed to plant and push off. His backpedaling ability and change of direction are crisp again.

And even though he's still "raw," tackling ability and athleticism mean Allen also offers promise to a defense hoping its turnaround sends the Hoosiers to a bowl game this season. Indiana plans to play him close to the line of scrimmage often, letting him attack the run and lean on his physicality.

"He's a guy that just naturally causes havoc on the offense," Joseph said. "We're gonna need that for our defense to take the next steps this year."

Follow Star reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.