Ohio will open Mid-American Conference play Saturday on the road at Kent State. The Bobcats closed nonconference action with a 58-42 win over UMass last week, and they have gotten stronger on offense as September’s waged on.
Here are some news, notes and observations from this week in Ohio football:
Which receiver is next?
In Ohio’s season opening win over Howard, Papi White had 148 receiving yards and a touchdown. He followed that up with 131 yards receiving and a touchdown against Virginia, despite the loss.
White’s been Ohio’s biggest weapon so far this season.
But in Ohio’s third game, it was Cam Odom’s turn to clip the 100-yard mark. His 114 receiving yards against Cincinnati was a career high. In Ohio’s shootout win over UMass, Odom, White and Andrew Meyer each had over 40 receiving yards, and White had two touchdowns.
Aside from those three, however, Ohio’s receiving corp hasn’t found its fourth pass catcher. The Bobcats are still searching for depth. Odom thinks he knows who is next in line for a productive afternoon.
“Isiah Cox,” Odom said. “He’s learning the game. He’s definitely — you can tell he’s playing faster this year. He still has a little bit of learning to do, but when his number’s called to make a play, he’s made those plays.”
Cox, a redshirt freshman, has just two catches on the season. But don’t let that fool anyone, those have been big receptions. His 36-yard touchdown catch against Virginia was the first of his career, and his 16-yard grab against UMass went for a first down.
He thinks he’s just getting started, but at the same time, Cox knows he’s got work to do. But the touchdown grab definitely was nice to have.
“First touchdown, I was excited,” Cox said. “At first, I knew I had him, then I saw the ball in the air, and I was like ‘I got it.’”
Potentially one of many.
Conditioning test
As Ohio enters October, midweek MAC play is fastly approaching. Coach Frank Solich is in his 14th year as a MAC coach, so he knows a thing or two about preparing for the midweek schedule. With three games between Oct. 20 and Nov. 1, Ohio will enter a gauntlet to finish the regular season. Solich has plans for how to attack the scheduling situation.
“Generally speaking, they're getting at least two days of rest,” he said. “It seems to be the right way to have our team energized come game day – so far so, good on that. It is a challenge when you have more than one game within a week. Obviously, in the MAC you're travelling in the middle of the week and you get home sometimes at four o'clock in the morning if it's a night game with an eight o'clock start or something. There are a lot of challenges you face; we've prepped our team about all of those challenge.”
Confidence in the backup
Quinton Maxwell hasn’t seen the field since he was inserted for a struggling Nathan Rourke on Sept. 1. In that relief appearance, he led the Bobcats to a come-from-behind victory over Howard.
Now that Rourke has been piloting the Ohio offense, Maxwell hasn’t been able to find time at quarterback. But if Maxwell gets his chance in a MAC game, Solich is confident in the results.
“I feel like Quinton is an excellent quarterback and would show really well if he was able to get his chances,“ he said. “We're hoping he'll get some chances where we can just get him in here or there, but some games get so close and the momentum shift can be so huge that if you've got something going that's going well, you've got to keep it going. We'll see how it all plays out."
