A small, figurative snowball has begun to roll down a hill and is gaining momentum.
After a blown safety call put the Bobcats down 9-3 against Buffalo, a call that redshirt senior quarterback Tyler Tettleton would later describe as a “joke,” Ohio folded against the Mid-American Conference East leaders.
The Bobcats (6-3, 3-2 MAC) ceded another 21 consecutive points in a 30-3 defeat seen by a national television audience on ESPN.
In Ohio’s road matchup against Bowling Green (6-3, 4-1 MAC), it will look to prevent the snowball effect and change the momentum of its season.
“We’re dealing with 20-year-old players, and their emotions are up and down,” coach Frank Solich said. “When things are going well, it shows. When things aren’t going well and things fall against them, sometimes that shows, too. I think that happened last game, and we need to learn how to overcome that as much as anything in terms of Xs and Os.”
Tettleton agreed with his coach and felt that the older players need to step up when faced with adversity.
“We’ve got to be better, leadership-wise among seniors to make sure that when something like that happens, we don’t let it take the air out of us,” Tettleton said. “We’ve just got to make sure that we come out every single play after that and are still fighting. … I think we learned from (Buffalo).”
Bowling Green harbors one of the stingiest defenses in the country, as it allows 16.8 points per game, which ranks seventh in the NCAA and first in the MAC.
To improve on the season-low three points scored last week, Tettleton said the offense has to do a better job of executing the basic tenets of what makes a successful offense.
“It’s like I say every week,” he said. “We just can’t turn the ball over, we’ve got to move the ball on third downs and when we’re in the red zone, we’ve got to score.”
Offensively, the Falcons are as balanced as any team Ohio has played this season, rushing for 194.8 yards per game, while passing for 256.2 yards in each contest, ranking in the top 50 in each category nationally.
Sophomore running back Travis Greene has rushed for 1,018 yards on the season, averaging 113.1 yards per game, which is the third-highest total among MAC running backs.
Slowing Greene down is an emphasis for the Bobcat defense.
“First of all, we have to stop the run,” redshirt junior safety Josh Kristoff said. “Obviously, we didn’t do as good of a job as we wanted to against Buffalo. We’re going to come out and try to stop the run and try to make them one-dimensional. If we get them in the passing game, we should be alright.”
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