WATERTOWN, Wis. -- Indiana University's Head Football Coach, Tom Allen, returned to Maranatha today to challenge his alma mater to think and live with purpose, passion, and structure - a structure with God's Word as the foundation for everything.

Everything.

Allen - an All-American wrestler and 1992 graduate of Maranatha - is changing the direction of the Indiana Football Program through new mindsets and expectations. With biblically-based mantras like "Love Each Other" as the starting part of the program's philosophy, he's building something special at a program that hasn't won a conference title since 1967. Allen was named the AFCA National Coach of the Year and Big Ten National Coach of the Year after leading the Hoosiers to a 6-2 record in 2020 - their best winning percentage in over 50 years. He's earning the respect of those around him, gaining national attention, and changing the culture of an entire program.

And he's doing it with God's Word as the basis for everything. 

Everything.

"Everything that I do as a coach is based in scripture," Allen said. "We've built an entire program based on biblical principles. My creed is to honor the Lord in everything I do."

To reinforce that, Allen promotes values like accountability, toughness, and love and uses passages like Philippians 3, Galatians 6, and John 15 as validation and initiation for all of those values.

It's more than just 'leading by example' for him. He reinforces the biblical values and the players first when they win games. And especially when they lose.

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Proud of our fight!! I love this team. pic.twitter.com/K4PHDkPnmv

— Coach Tom Allen (@CoachAllenIU) November 21, 2020

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Indiana players had to hype up their coach up after upsetting No. 16 Wisconsin ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ZGczU6ceLF

— ESPN (@espn) December 6, 2020

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Allen demonstrates the culture of accountability by asking every member of the team - players and staff - to choose one word for the year and to post it publicly on social media. Allen retweets the content, and of course, he intentionally posts a word himself with scripture as its rationale. This is just one example of what Coach Allen does to build a culture at the program. A culture with God's Word as the foundation for everything.

"People are people," Allen said. "How you build a team does not change. It's about capturing the hearts and the minds of the people you're with."

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For more on Coach Allen and the team, click here.