An injury and an ejection set the Bobcats back even more.
Western Michigan coach P.J. Fleck likes to say, “Row the boat.”
Against Ohio, that mantra was switched to pounding the rock. So much so that Ohio allowed more rushing yards in the second half alone than it has allowed total yards in five of its seven games.
On a day titled “Bobcat Blackout,” the Broncos (3-3, 2-0 Mid-American Conference) blacked out the Bobcats (5-2, 2-1 MAC) 49-14 on Saturday afternoon at Peden Stadium, handing Ohio its first MAC loss.
“It’s eye opening” senior running back Daz Patterson said. “We were 5-1 coming into this game. When you’re winning it just feels good, you go into the game with confidence. But it lets you know it can happen any week, especially in this conference.”
After a dull, scoreless first quarter and a second quarter that also lacked venom, it was an ejection call that started the landslide.
In the second quarter, redshirt senior cornerback Ian Wells left the game for a questionable targeting call.
Truthfully, once Wells left the game, Ohio’s defensive tenacity and swagger went with him.
“Second half, I don’t know if they game planned us or what," Kurt Laseak, a redshirt junior defensive lineman, said. "But they were hitting the right gaps at the right time and they were taking it the distance. I have to watch film before I can say what went wrong.”
After a scoreless first quarter and holding the Broncos to 29 rushing yards in the first half, the Bobcats rushing defense was trampled and left on the roadside —WMU had 401 rushing yards in the second half alone.
Western Michigan finished the game with 430 rushing yards.
“I don’t really have an explanation for what happened,” coach Frank Solich said. “It was kind of baffling to me to see us fall apart against the run.”
Though part of the defensive collapse could be attributed to Wells’ departure, losing sophomore linebacker Quentin Poling in the first quarter to a lower body injury didn’t help the matter. Solich said Poling will be out for a few weeks.
“He is very much a run stopper,” Solich said. “Teams generally, when he’s in there and operating at full speed, generally that middle is not as vulnerable as what you saw today.”
When Poling, who’s been the MAC East division defensive player of the week three times this season, got hurt, that meant redshirt linebacker Chad Moore had to fill in at middle linebacker — a position Moore typically doesn’t play.
But Solich even said after the game that Moore was limping at halftime.
Had the Bobcats won, they would’ve been bowl eligible and equaled their win total from last year. Instead, they need to regroup after a blowout loss at home that knocks the team off the top of the MAC East and a potential momentum killer entering the heart of MAC play.
"We’ve got a lot of work to go,” Solich said.
