Ohio determined to reclaim "Battle for the Bell".
With age comes wisdom. It’s corny and cliché, but applicable to Ohio coach Frank Solich, who celebrated his 71st birthday Tuesday.
Solich delivered the perfect words regarding Saturday night’s home opener – “The Battle for the Bell” – against Marshall.
“The game means an awful lot and you don’t have to look for ways to build the game up,” Solich said in a press conference Monday. “In itself, it builds itself up.”
And he’s right.
For as much as the matchup with Miami riles fans up, it’s the “Battle for the Bell” that produces the most competitive annual rivalry. But the upcoming 2015 edition will have to double as an encore, with the two programs not scheduled to meet again until 2019.
“It’s been a very good series,” Solich said. “In the six games (I’ve been a part of), we are 3-3. The matchup has been very solid and very strong on both ends.
“There have been two games, one where we won handedly and last year they won handedly. Other than that, they have been hard-fought, close football games if my memory is correct.”
The latter game Solich is referring to was Marshall’s 41-14 decimation of Ohio in Huntington, West Virginia, which at one time was a submissive 41-0 midway through the third quarter.
Yet Solich, nor the rest of the Bobcats, look back on 2014 as a reason for revenge.
More so, Saturday’s home opener at Peden Stadium is about continuing Ohio’s momentum from a 45-28 win at Idaho this past Thursday.
“We don’t look at it as revenge,” wide receiver Jordan Reid said. “We just look at it as a new year, a new us. We just gotta execute. That’s the biggest thing we can do.”
If Ohio can replicate its season-opening performance, when both quarterbacks (redshirt senior Derrius Vick and redshirt juniorJ.D. Sprague) combined for three touchdowns and only five incompletions, it should trigger the team’s running game.
A sizeable portion of Ohio’s vertical threat might depend on Marshall safety Tiquan Lang. In the Thundering Herd’s 41-31 win over Purdue on Saturday, the sophomore tallied 17 total tackles and two interceptions. Lang returned both interceptions for touchdowns.
“He just did things that do not get done in this game very often,” Solich said. “I don’t know how long you have to go back to see that combination of two picks that go all the way, plus 17 tackles. In my time, I don’t recall somebody having that kind of a game.”
Regardless, the home opener has the amenities of a climatic farewell. After all, a Bobcats win would keep the Bell in Athens for an extended stay.
“I’m sure it’s been great for the fans,” Solich said. “(Marshall) travels well. It’s easy for them to make this game up here with a good crowd and it’s easy for us make the game down there with a good crowd. All of that is a plus in terms of playing one another.”
@charliehatch_
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