BOWLING GREEN — As the Bowling Green defense collapsed on Ohio's running back, quarterback Nathan Rourke did what he hadn't done all day: He pulled the ball out of the running back's arms and kept it for himself.
Rourke took off down the field with the Falcons defense frantically trying to catch the quarterback they'd forgotten to account for.
It was too late.
Due in part to a halftime adjustment and Rourke's 75-yard touchdown run, Ohio beat Bowling Green 48-30 at Doyt L. Perry Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
“That’s the thing — they weren’t looking," Rourke said. "That’s what we were trying to exploit from them. I said, 'Let’s not read anybody, let me just pull it and see what happens.' That’s what happened. Everyone, their eyes were on the running back; I was able to pretty much just kind of walk in.”
Both Ohio's coaches and Rourke realized the Bowling Green defense wasn't accounting for Rourke in the run game, so the decision was made to give Rourke more opportunities to carry the ball.
His first run off the read option in the second half went for a touchdown.
"They weren’t really respecting me in terms of covering me," Rourke said. "So we looked at it from the booth and whatnot, we made a change and said, ‘Let’s see what we can do with that.’ As soon as you do that, they start covering me and that opens up the running backs. It kind of works hand-in-hand.”
The move worked for Rourke and the offense, which battered Bowling Green's defense to the tune of 335 yards on the ground.
Despite having just 24 yards rushing at halftime, Rourke gained 143 yards on the ground in the entire game. He also scored three rushing touchdowns.
“We weren’t calling the read (option) as much in the first half," coach Frank Solich said. "The second half, we started to call that a lot. They, at times, were firing their corner; a lot of times they just bring the corner in to keep you from running that way. We ran up the middle enough that their rush ends started really closing.”
Rourke carried the ball just eight times for 17.9 yards per carry, but the Bobcats didn't need him to do any more.
He wasn't very effective through the air, finishing 7-of-22 passing with 105 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. But when the ground game is operating like a well-oiled machine, it doesn't matter.
Over the last three games, Rourke has 35 carries, 338 yards and seven rushing touchdowns.
“If you can get that phase of your game going, it’s a beat-down approach that you end up taking," Solich said. "The first two quarters, it was very close, then we started to separate ourselves in the third and continued to do that in the fourth.”
Ohio led just 21-16 at halftime, due in large part to a pick six from Bradd Ellis. But after halftime, the game slowly but surely turned.
The Bobcats added 27 points for good measure in the second half and continually wore down the Falcons defense.
“It was a rough start, especially personally," Rourke said. "I’m just really proud of our team for keeping composure, offensively especially.”
Ohio's defense forced three turnovers, including the touchdown from Ellis. Bowling Green quarterback James Morgan went just 16-of-41 for 182 yards passing on the day as the Ohio defense gradually gained more and more confidence as the game wore on.
That confidence can be pointed to the 3:41 mark of the third quarter, when Rourke took off down the Ohio sideline, blockers in front, Bowling Green defenders behind him.
“You’d think that they’d have someone to cover the quarterback; they just weren’t getting that," Rourke said. "I don’t know what the reason was for that, but they fixed it as soon as we started attacking them that way.”
