IU defensive coordinator Tom Allen came to Bloomington in search of a leader.
Somebody established. Somebody respected by his teammates. Somebody who works hard and plays harder.
Somebody like junior linebacker Marcus Oliver.
“I really thought that he was the guy that needed to lead our defense,” Allen said, “and I thought that he was very uncomfortable doing that in some ways.”
Oliver enters his fourth season with the Hoosier program, his 2014 campaign cut short due to an ACL tear.
Players like former Hoosiers Antonio Allen and David Cooper, along with senior linebacker T.J. Simmons, owned the majority of the production while Oliver worked back from his injury.
Last season, then-Hoosiers Nick Mangieri, Zack Shaw and Darius Latham propelled the IU defensive line to the most visible group on the defense as they sacked opposing quarterbacks a combined 17.5 times.
Still, IU Coach Kevin Wilson described Oliver as consistent and noted his cerebral play throughout the 2015 season, when he notched 112 tackles and 6.5 sacks.
Now, the headline names have either graduated or left to pursue professional careers. Oliver is the man Tom Allen and the IU defense are looking to to help fix the issues that left the Hoosier defense in the Big Ten cellar a season ago.
Being quiet and leading by example — natural attributes of the junior linebacker — are not the characteristics Allen is looking for.
“People talk about leading by example,” Allen said. “That’s not leading. What if I did that as a defensive coordinator? Well, then there’s no leadership. To me, he has to talk, and he has to bark out the calls with confidence.”
The decision wasn’t a result of progressive coaching or made by process of elimination. Oliver was chosen as IU’s defensive leader, Allen said, on day one.
Oliver said Allen honed in on him in the first week of spring practices, just waiting for the opportunity to call him out on a mistake. When Oliver did, Allen made an example out of him.
Oliver didn’t like it, but understood why Allen did it.
“I just said, ‘The reality is, Marcus, that your position demands it,’” Allen said about the linebacker’s leadership. “‘If you’re going to be the mike linebacker of the defense, it demands that you step up.’ I was all over him, and as a matter of fact, I could tell that it wasn’t really what he liked.”
Oliver said though that he appreciates Allen’s coaching methods: creating quizzes for every defensive player about each position’s responsibility on the field instead of just his own, bringing players closer together to develop trust and singling Oliver out to make an example.
But, that doesn’t mean it’s easy for Allen or Oliver to create a leader out of the linebacker.
Allen said he has already kicked Oliver off the field once during a drill. It wasn’t for anything terrible, just another opportunity Allen saw for Oliver to grow as a player, person and leader.
“I pulled him in and we talked one-on-one,” Allen said about the incident. “I knew that’s what he needed because we’ve got to have that guy. Sometimes when you don’t have that voice that’s saying the right things, you’ll have those voices that are saying the wrong things.”
What Oliver said he remembers most about IU’s defensive breakdowns last year wasn’t that the defense as a whole fell apart, or didn’t play to its potential, it was one player who messed up and allowed a big play.
That’s why Allen is forcing the experienced linebacker to become a leader, he said, to be the voice when IU’s defense needs it most.
“When something happens on the field, I’m not out there, I can’t be out there,” Allen said, referring to Oliver. “You have to fix the problem. If you don’t, who’s going to?”
