Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

A week ago at this time the Hoosiers were licking their wounds and taking a hard look in the mirror after a 51-10 drubbing at the hands of the Ohio State Buckeyes. After beating Connecticut 38-3 on Saturday afternoon to move to 3-1, Indiana head coach Tom Allen said his team was “a very hungry group and they were upset, too. They were disappointed and very frustrated by how they performed last week.”

Allen “challenged them with that and really I went to both groups individually, the offensive side of the football separately, defensive side of the football separately, and just challenged them about how we're going to play this game, and they responded.”

People forget that this Indiana defense is still very young. “Sometimes you forget how young we are on defense sometimes. I mean, sometimes I forget” Allen explained, “you've got to make sure they're executing everything, and then when you throw in some tempo things at times, last weekend it kind of made it even worse I thought.”

So what adjustments did the Hoosiers make in order to hold Connecticut to just three points and 145 total yards?

“Just kind of back to basics,” Allen said postgame, “back to just absolutely just investing so much time in run fits and tackling. I mean, that's all we worked on, and simplified some things, made some changes in some things.”

The Hoosiers put pressure on Connecticut quarterback Jack Zergiotis early and often. IU defenders combined for five tackles for loss, two sacks and three quarterback hurries, one of which resulted in a pick sick from IU linebacker Cam Jones.

After the game Indiana defensive end Michael Ziemba, who made three tackles including a tackle for loss, said, “We definitely had more of a sense of urgency. UConn is a great team and we just wanted to get better this week. We knew that we could come out here and play our brand of football and we did."

Saturday’s win was a step forward for the Hoosiers. Forward to a big challenge next week in East Lansing

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