Indiana’s defense showed up on Saturday afternoon. Coming out of the bye week, the Hoosiers shut down Rutgers completely, posting a 35-0 win over the Scarlet Knights.

Saturday’s shutout win marked the second time IU has held an opponent scoreless, posting a 52-0 win over Eastern Illinois earlier this year. After Michigan State scored 40 on the Hoosiers’ defense two weeks ago, it was exactly the kind of defensive performance Tom Allen wanted to see.

According to Zach Osterman of the Indianapolis Star, Allen was excited about how the defense played, allowing just 1 passing yards and ending the day converting on zero of its 11 third-down attempts.

Allen did acknowledge that the Hoosiers played a little loose after a quick 21-0 lead in the first quarter, and would’ve like to have seen better effort in that situation.

Even when the team was playing in a “lull,” they still didn’t give Rutgers much hope.

Rutgers finished the day with 75 total yards of offense and six first downs.

Indiana improved to 4-2 on the season with the win, and notched its first B1G victory of the season, moving to 1-2 in conference play. The win sets up an opportunity for the Hoosiers to reach bowl eligibility by the month of November, with games against Maryland, Northwestern and Nebraska coming up before going idle again.

There’s a good shot the Hoosiers can get two wins in those three games before a final stretch against Penn State, Michigan and Purdue. Especially if the defense plays as well as it did Saturday.