Solich and his ’Cats not satisfied with failed upset bid
By Caleb Troop
September 8, 2008
For three quarters, the Ohio University football squad was living a dream. The ’Cats faced a tough challenge against third-ranked Ohio State on Saturday afternoon, and for a few hours they had the college football nation on upset alert. In a game in which almost everyone expected a blowout win for OSU, Ohio took a 14-12 lead into the fourth quarter.
But in crunch time, the Buckeyes showed why they are a national title contender seemingly every single season. Ohio State (2-0) stormed back for 20 unanswered points in the final 18 minutes of the game to pull out a 26-14 win.
“We don’t feel very good about (the loss),” Ohio coach Frank Solich said. “We made plays, but we just didn’t make enough plays. Again, we had some opportunities. It was good to take them into the fourth quarter, but a few more plays would have put us in that thing at the end of the fourth quarter.”
Implausibly, Ohio (0-2) dominated the first half, taking a shocking 7-6 lead into the locker room thanks to tailback Donte Harden’s 15-yard scamper to the end zone on his first carry of the game. Ohio had more total yardage (127) than Ohio State (117) over the first two frames and was an impressive 5 of 9 on third-down tries.
Ohio junior defensive end Kris Luchsinger said the Bobcats were cautiously optimistic at halftime with a one-point advantage.
“We were really excited, but we knew we had to keep our composure because there were 30 more minutes of football to play,” Luchsinger said. “(There are) 60 minutes in a ball game. Play from the start, and play to the finish.”
Six minutes into the third quarter, Ohio pushed its lead to 14-6 on Curtis Meyers’ fumble recovery in the end zone following a bad shotgun snap intended for Buckeye QB Todd Boeckman. But then the ’Cats started to unravel.
Running back Dan Herron scored on a one-yard scamper for OSU with less than three minutes left in the third quarter, and ’Cats cornerback Mark Parson muffed away a punt at the sideline with just 58 ticks left in the period. It took just one minute of the fourth quarter clock for the Buckeyes to convert on Ohio’s third of five eventual miscues. OSU tailback Brandon Saine received the call on a two-yard scoring run to make it 19-14 Buckeyes.
Junior quarterback Boo Jackson, who replaced Ohio starter Theo Scott after he left due to a left shoulder injury late in the first frame, threw two of his three interceptions over the last nine minutes of the game as Ohio’s offense shut down and the Scarlet and Gray cruised to the 12-point victory.
“I had a couple of costly throws that got tipped and picked off,” Jackson admitted. “That last one, I just tried to force the ball in there. Both of those swung the momentum into their favor. As a quarterback, you don’t want to get down on yourself, but it’s kind of hard not to when you have them in the first half and then you come out (in the second half) and we just fall apart like that.”
Between Jackson’s two fourth-quarter interceptions, Ohio State punt returner Ray Small returned a boot 69 yards for a TD midway through the period to clinch the “W” for OSU. Parson said the monumental upset bid in the end was broken up because of the turnovers.
“Whenever the other team wins the turnover ratio, you are basically beating yourself up,” he said. “Special teams, my fumble, and then the punt return really hurt us. I think that is what did us in ultimately.”
Solich said his squad can’t be satisfied with merely competing with Ohio State. The ’Cats need to move on and get ready for a home tilt next week inside Peden Stadium against the two-time defending Mid-American Conference champions (Central lost to number two Georgia, 56 to 17).
“The thing that we’ve got to guard against is feeling like, ‘Wow, we played Ohio State and it was pretty close.’ This game is gone. We are going to have to play our very, very best against Central Michigan to get that thing taken care of,” Solich said. “So we’ve got to refocus now, and refocusing means not caring where we play or who we play, but just getting ourselves ready to play our best ball game.”
While Luchsinger and the rest of the Bobcats aren’t pleased with the end result, they now realize they can play with anyone in the nation on any given day.
“We do know that we are a good football team,” he said. “The fact that we didn’t win our opening two games doesn’t mean anything against us, it’s just how the dice roll. We have the MAC game coming up, which is more important to us than any of these games.”
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