FOXBOROUGH, Ma. — Ohio offense didn’t show much bite in its first-ever game against Massachusetts Saturday, but instead opted for a bit of tug-and-pull, which was eventually enough to put the Bobcats in the driver’s seat at Gillette Stadium.
The Bobcats were outplayed early and threatened late, but the Minutemen’s best performance of the season wasn’t enough to spoil Ohio's perfect record, as it walked away with a 37-34 victory.
Ohio redshirt junior quarterback Tyler Tettleton took every snap except one for the Bobcats, racking up 229 yards on 15-of-27 passing and a pair of touchdowns. He said he felt "really good," though he admitted to shying away from contact early in the game.
He also became the fifth Bobcat to account for 5,000 or more yards in his career.
Ohio’s biggest offensive storyline, though, was redshirt junior running back Beau Blankenship, who had a career-high 269 yards and a pair of touchdowns. His 43 carries tied a program record for most in a game.
Going into the contest, an Ohio back had not run for more than 200 yards in a game since 2008, when Chris Garrett had 222 in a win against Miami. Blankenship's total was the third-highest in team history, as well.
Even more so than his stat line indicates, Blankenship carried the offense.
"We were somewhat one-dimensional in the running game because we did not want to run Tyler much and that meant Beau was going to get handoffs," said Ohio coach Frank Solich.
The Minutemen (0-5, 0-2 MAC) began the game on a 12-play, 82-yard drive in which they racked up three straight first downs, as opposed to Ohio’s inaugural three-and-out. Then, on a third-and-long from the Bobcats’ 27-yard line, UMass redshirt freshman quarterback Mike Wegzyn unleashed his first pinpoint pass of the game up the middle to redshirt senior wide receiver Alan Williams, who out jumped redshirt sophomore safties Josh Kristoff and Nathan Carpenter for the grab.
It didn’t take long for the Bobcats (5-0, 1-0 MAC) to answer, but their response was hardly heard over Gillette Stadium’s announced crowd of 8,321, as they had to settle for a 27-yard field goal from redshirt senior kicker Matt Weller. Junior running back Beau Blankenship rounded the outside corner for a 12-yard run end zone cut on the previous play, but it was called back because of a holding penalty that allowed him to do so.
The Minutemen did the same on their ensuing drive, as UMass freshman kicker Blake Lucas laced a 30-yarder through the uprights to put the Minutemen ahead 10-3.
Ohio didn’t threaten offensively until its third drive, which began on its 21-yard line. Blankenship started things off by busting up the middle for gains of 29, 25 and 10 yards.
Although Blankenship was called on for 72 of the drive’s 79 yards, Tettleton hit redshirt junior tight end Troy Hill for a one-yard pitch-and-catch in the near corner of the end zone for Ohio’s first touchdown of the game.
It took less than two and a half minutes for the Minutemen to bounce back, though. Wegzyn caught the Bobcats in a heavy blitz situation, and made good of the empty secondary with a 50-yard bomb to Williams for the duo’s second score of the day.
But, encapsulating the teams’ first half tempo, Tettleton released his first big-time pass down the near sideline to redshirt sophomore wide receiver Chase Cochran for an equally opportune 41-yard touchdown less than two minutes later, capping a seven play, 75-yard drive.
Ohio’s defense was far from efficient in the first half, allowing 248 total yards and seven third down conversions. Solich said the vulnerability of his secondary was concerning heading into the break.
“(UMass) completed a lot of throws and seven of 10 third down conversions at halftime … it was too many, and they were making big plays through the passing game,” he said.
As if to prove their first half performance was far from a fluke, the Minutemen came out of the break swinging. Wegzyn connected with wide receiver Deion Walker, a graduate student, for a 26-yard touchdown on the Minutemen’s first series, reminiscent of Cochran’s touchdown catch late in the first half.
Then the Minutemen caught another break. With 9:37 remaining in the third quarter, the referees received a trademark Boston chorus of boos when they ruled a UMass fumble on its own 14-yard line. Three plays later, the jeers turned to cheers, when Ohio redshirt senior tight end Jordan Thompson let a perfectly placed pass slip through his outstretched fingers in the corner of the end zone.
The roar peaked on the next play, though, when UMass junior cornerback Antoine Tharpe broke through Ohio’s kick protection unit and batted aside redshirt senior kicker Matt Weller’s 33-yard field goal attempt.
If any juncture could be considered a turning point for Ohio, it was when Thompson extended horizontally for a four-yard completion at the Minutemen’s 24-yard line with a fourth-and-two and no time remaining in the third quarter.
Thompson’s redemption was quantified four plays later when Blankenship broke through the line for a five-yard touchdown, his first of the two.
“I don’t like the word ‘scared,’ ” Thompson said, in regard to the team’s mindset late in the game. “Our team’s not scared. We’re going to make the plays when we need to make them. That’s a sign of a good team, when you don’t play your best football and come back to win like that.”
Weller then put the Bobcats on top in their next drive, capping a seven-play, 36-yard march with a 26-yard field goal.
Little was lost by the Ohio defense before Blankenship banged his way through the line and into the open field for another score this time from 40 yards out, to bring the Bobcats’ lead to 10.
“We kind of got off to a slow start and started clicking there in the second half, but it’s just kind of one of those things where we just can’t seem to get it all going in the first half and put it together for the full game,” Tettleton said. “One of these weeks, it’s going to click and I just can’t wait for that week to come.”
With just more than three minutes remaining in the game, UMass made one more scoring push. Williams broke a pair of tackles on a swing pass, ran 11 yards and then finished the drive with an end-over-end front-flip to the turf. The score brought the score within three, which was how it would be etched into the record books.
The win surely was not as lopsided as many expected heading into the game — Ohio had not allowed 33 or more points in a win since Oct. 3, 2008 against Bowling Green — but Solich was able to pull away several positives, most significantly a more concrete vision of how Ohio performs under pressure.
“Today’s game was the second close contest we have had, including the game against Marshall,” he said. “At some point, you want to stop the learning experiences and just want to have learned enough to avoid the close contests, but I’m afraid that’s not the way it works in the MAC.”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
