By Tyler Devine

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa defense did something on Saturday that the Maryland offense could not.

It scored.

Junior defensive end Anthony Nelson recovered his first career fumble in the end zone late in the third quarter to put Iowa up 23-0 to secure its first shutout since a 28-0 victory over Illinois in 2016.

Iowa’s defense has scored at least one defensive touchdown in each of the last 11 seasons.

“That’s the dream,” Nelson said of his first career touchdown. “Just have one roll in the back of the end zone with basically nobody around and just able to jump on it. That was a good feeling for sure.”

Not only did Iowa blank Maryland, it did so in dominating fashion on a blustery day in Kinnick Stadium.

Iowa held Maryland to just 115 total yards and seven first downs while only allowing the Terrapins to cross midfield twice.

The 115 yards was the fewest ever allowed to a Big Ten opponent and the fourth fewest all-time under head coach Kirk Ferentz.

Junior quarterback Nate Stanley and the Iowa offense also had a hand in things, possessing the ball for almost 41 minutes.

“Stats, they don’t really mean anything,” Senior defensive end Parker Hesse said. “We’re here to win the game and obviously our offense had a huge impact on the yards and points today, they absolutely controlled the clock.

“That’s something that you look up and see every now and then throughout the game. You want to keep the rushing yards low, we want to keep them under 100 yards, keep the zero up there, stuff like that.”

Maryland had been averaging 245 rushing yards per game entering Saturday, but was held to 68 yards on the ground, including just 18 yards in the first half.

The Terrapins also ran just 39 plays, which is the fewest allowed in the Ferentz era.

“They've been playing really well overall and pretty consistently,” Ferentz said. “But today was a really unique challenge, and that's where the preparation — it's always important, but preparing well and then you have to play with really good discipline against these guys.

“The other thing you have to do is tackle, and it's everybody on the defense tackles because they'll isolate safeties if safeties aren't making tackles or corners, that's where those big plays come from. It was discipline plus tackling, surely, and I think those two things, we did a good job of that.”

Injury report: Senior fullback Brady Ross and senior linebacker Jack Hockaday did not play on Saturday. Ross is expected to miss at least one more game, while it appears that Hockaday’s season is over.

“(Ross will) be out this game, probably a couple,” Ferentz said on Tuesday. “We will see how that goes. It's going to take a couple weeks at least to heal.

“I mentioned Jack, doesn't look good. I guess doubtful is the right term. I would not count on him being back with us.”

Sophomore running back Ivory Kelly-Martin returned the lineup after missing time due to a head injury.

The 5-foot-10, 200-pound Kelly-Martin led Iowa with 98 rushing yards on 24 carries, both career highs.

First of many: Sophomore receiver Brandon Smith caught his first career touchdown pass to give Iowa a 13-0 lead heading into halftime. The touchdown also put Stanley fifth all-time at Iowa with 42 touchdown passes. He is one touchdown away from tying Matt Sherman for fourth on the list.

The 6-foot-3, 219-pound Smith had to wait a bit to celebrate, however.

The touchdown went under review, but the call was confirmed.

“It made me a little nervous,” Smith said. “I was watching the big screen but I knew I got both of my feet down. I was still a little nervous it was going to get overturned but I’m glad it didn’t.

“I’m glad I got the first one out of the way so hopefully I get a lot more.”

Good, clean football: For the first time since a 38-17 loss to Ohio State in 2006, Iowa played a game without being penalized.

On the other side, Maryland was penalized six times for 46 yards, including a roughing the passer call in the second quarter that helped set up Stanley’s touchdown pass to Smith.

“Again, just overall really happy with our team's performance today,” Ferentz said. “I think you play a team like Maryland, they pose some really unique challenges for us, and you factor in the conditions on top of it, I thought our guys did a really good job of being focused, doing the things they had to do to be successful, and overall just a really good day.”