Ohio has been strong in the conference opening games, traditionally. A year ago, the team beat Buffalo on the road and lost to Akron to open the season.
Coach Aaron Rodgers is expecting a similar outcome this year, hopefully claiming six points and not three as the Bobcats open conference play against Bowling Green on Friday night as well as Toledo on Sunday.
“I fully expect us to come out and start with a good message to the conference,” Rodgers said. “It’s always exciting because you are starting a second season within a season. This is a long 11-game (Mid-American Conference) season.”
It helps that two of the five road games are in the opening weekend.
Rodgers said he loves going on the road. It gives his team the chance to bond and get closer with each other. In the past the team has gone to a farm when it traveled to Kentucky.
This year, Rodgers said he hopes to be able to have dinner at one of his players’ family’s house.
Although Ohio is 2-4-1, the competitiveness of some of the strongest teams in the region is going to fair well for the Bobcats.
Rodgers knew what he was doing when he scheduled the non-conference opponents this year. All seven teams his team has played were scheduled with one idea in mind: MAC play.
“Everything we have done in the pre-conference has been to prepare us,” Rodgers said. “We put ourselves up against some good and traditionally great teams to play against and we shouldn’t see anything in conference that we haven’t already been prepared for.”
The losses Ohio has so far this season aren’t bad losses. All the losses this year have been decided by one goal. With most of those losses coming in overtime, there are some things that Rodgers’ team needs to work on in terms of consistency.
Both Bowling Green and Toledo have similar non-conference schedules to Ohio. Rodgers doesn’t know what challenges his team is going to face other than trying to keep the intensity for 90 minutes and not after a goal is given up.
“We can’t be defined on one game or one weekend. We want to be able to run this marathon as quickly as we can, as steady as we can throughout the whole conference season.”
