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Indiana's trend of slow starts finally dug them a hole too deep to climb out of on Saturday as the Hoosiers fell in their first road outing of the season 45-24 to the host Cincinnati Bearcats.

The struggles in the first half for this year's team have been well-noted up to this point, with Saturday's affair being the latest game to feature Indiana trailing at the halfway point. Heading into Saturday, the Hoosiers had trailed by six at the half against Illinois, 10 versus Idaho, and seven versus Western Kentucky.

Following the Idaho game, head coach Tom Allen's comments stuck out.

"You can't wait until halftime to start playing football," Allen said.

Cincinnati, with all due respect to those aforementioned schools, is much stiffer competition. Head coach Tom Allen's Indiana team knew following the beginning to the season that the way they were winning wasn't sustainable. On Saturday, Indiana once again waited until halftime to start playing competitive football. They just finally got punished for it.

Playing on the road in a hostile environment, Indiana was on the wrong side of a 38-10 scoreline after the first 30 minutes. IU would never recover.

"Yeah, it's concerning, there's no doubt," Allen said following the loss. "Because then you start developing a pattern. You have your growing pains with having some new guys, but heading into week four, that needs to be behind us."

Cincinnati accumulated 328 yards of offense in the first half despite only running 33 plays of offense. Indiana, on the other hand, struggled to establish an effective rhythm and balance on offense, averaging just 3.7 yards per play as opposed to the 9.8 from the Bearcats. For most of the first half, it felt as if Indiana didn't belong on the same field with their opponent.

"We didn't really feel good about the rhythm that we had throughout the game," Allen said.

With regards to the slow starts, Allen was open and honest about the struggles his squad have faced so far.

"It definitely needs to be a point of emphasis, not that it hasn't been already, but obviously not good enough," Allen said. "We're still struggling to get off to a fast start on offense, because it has to happen. We gotta make some changes to how we're practicing to be able to get where we need to get."

Indiana's commitment to the tempo-driven offense sometimes finds their offense with longer yards to gain on second and third down, ultimately hindering the play calling opportunities at offensive coordinator Walt Bell's disposal. Those struggles were emphasized on Saturday, and the end result shows the consequence.

"I think that it's just as critical that you stay numerically where you need to be, in terms of the chains," Allen said. "I think that really affects us in a negative way, and I like the things we're able to do with it, but we weren't consistent in our execution.

"It just kind of snowballed as the lead got further and further from us in the first half because the defense was giving up big plays."

As Allen alluded, the offense's contribution to the deficit was equally matched by the defensive efforts, which were lackluster for much of the first half.

The most frustrating part of it for Indiana was that it stemmed from the defensive backs, a group that was tabbed to anchor this Indiana defense heading into this season. Circling back to Cincinnati's first half totals, 314 of the 323 yards Indiana surrendered came through the aerial attack. It helped contribute to career days for both QB Ben Bryant and WR Tyler Scott, who torched the IU secondary for three scores in the first half by themselves.

Scott himself was recruited as a defensive back out of high school, and hosted by Tiawan Mullen on his visit to IU. Go figure.

"We gave up some double moves and had some of our best guys get beat 1-on-1, which is disappointing without question," Allen said. "We played a lot of the things we really believe in the first half, and we made some adjustments to get those guys some help."

Those adjustments certainly made an impact as the Hoosiers limited the Bearcats ability to create big plays, holding them to just 71 yards in the second half. Those adjustments, though, were too little, too late.

"You have to be a complete defense," Allen said. "We stopped the run today, we have to stop the pass. We have to play four quarters, we just dug too deep of a hole for ourselves in that first half.

"This team has fight and grit but you can't get down by four scores in the first half."

If Allen's statements are true about the fight and grit that this team possesses, then a bounce back effort could be in the cards. The second half response, outscoring the Bearcats and at certain points and giving themselves opportunities to recapture the magic that has taken them over the finish line in three of their first four contests.

However, today could serve as a solemn warning of possibly similar results in the future. If Indiana continues to bury their chances at victory in the first half of games, then they may also bury their hopes at any more sustained success in 2022.

Only time will tell.

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