NASSAU, Bahamas — Ohio's offense had just delivered a touchdown on its opening drive. No one knew it at the time, but it would be the winning score.
The Bobcats defense didn't care. They remembered the loss at Akron, the loss that crippled their season and finished their Mid-American Conference Championship hopes.
That motivation was all the Ohio defense needed to shut down UAB's offense to the tune of 353 yards in a 41-6 victory on Friday at the Bahamas Bowl.
“When we went up 7-0, we thought about the Akron game, and that’s what made us play even harder," safety Javon Hagan said. "When we were up 7-0 against Akron, easy, and then we ended up losing. We’d seen it before, and that’s what made us go harder.”
The Bobcats didn't forget, and they held the normally formidable Blazer rushing attack to just 99 yards on the day. Freshman standout Spencer Brown, who averaged 108.5 yards per game coming into the game, was held to just 37 yards, good for a 2.8 yards per carry average.
"The number one thing we do on defense is stop the run," Hagan said. "When we stopped the run, they had to pass, and our secondary was ready for it. We just had a pep talk before the game saying we had to make more plays. Stopping the run definitely made them throw, and we were able to make some great plays on the ball.”
The front seven blitzed the UAB offensive line throughout the entire game, forcing the Blazers into some uncomfortable situations throughout the day.
The Blazers threw the ball just 39.8 percent of the time over the course of the regular season, but quarterback A.J. Erdely dropped back to pass 45 times Friday afternoon. That meant that UAB, out of its comfort zone, had to do things it wasn't used to against a stout Ohio front seven that allowed just 111.4 yards per game heading into the game.
Ohio didn't get any sacks, but Erdely found himself taking hits throughout the entire game.
"If you’re stopping the running and getting hits on the quarterback when he’s throwing and able to pressure him as much as we were able to pressure him today, there are very few quarterbacks who are going to have great days when they’re taking that many hits and getting that much pressure put on him," coach Frank Solich said.
Even with the offensive outburst, the Bobcats would have been fine without the first drive of the game. But the momentum from the first drive was what propelled Ohio to its biggest bowl win in school history.
Six points, as it turned out, was the second-lowest amount Ohio allowed all season.
“Momentum in bowl games is pretty much the whole entire thing whether you win or lose," linebacker Evan Croutch said of the first drive. "Keeping that momentum throughout the whole entire game was extremely big for us.”
