Bobcats pick up their third straight November win for the first time since 2011.
Ohio coach Frank Solich probably didn’t ask sophomore A.J. Oullette to dominate when redshirt junior quarterback JD Sprague came out of the game with an injury.
But both of them knew that’s what he needed to do. And dominate he did.
Oullette finished with 140 yards on 30 carries while pacing the offense to lead Ohio (8-4) to a surprise road upset over Northern Illinois 26-21. The win snaps a streak of 22 consecutive November victories for Northern Illinois (8-4)—a streak that started in 2009.
The evening certainly didn’t start out looking like the Bobcats would need to milk Oullette for all he was worth. In Ohio’s second drive of the game, Sprague marched it down the field with ease, completing three passes for 62 yards while running once for 13 more, and showed a spark similar to the one he showed in last week’s dominating win over Ball State.
That spark was snuffed out, however, on an attempted wide receiver reverse two drives later, when Sprague landed awkwardly attempting to catch a pass from Brendan Cope near the endzone.
Sprague never returned to the game, and with redshirt senior Derrius Vick injured and on the sideline, Ohio was forced to turn to redshirt junior Greg Windham at quarterback and a run-heavy attack on offense.
The run game isn’t the first place one would expect Ohio to be shorthanded, but with four of the team’s top five tailbacks out of the game with injury, it meant Oullette was forced to carry the load essentially by himself.
He answered the call with his biggest rushing performance of the season.
Northern Illinois briefly appeared to be poised for a rally, in the second half, answering 20-7 halftime deficit with a brutal drive that took just three passes to march 86 yards down the field and into the endzone, cutting the deficit to six points.
Its next drive, however, made such a rally difficult.
With the Huskies driving but forcing a third down, quarterback Ryan Graham dropped back to pass, but spun into a brutal sack by Chad Moore that left him unable to put pressure on his left leg. With first-string quarterback Drew Hare out for the game, it meant Northern Illinois, too, would have to turn to a third-string quarterback.
The difference was Northern Illinois simply didn’t have the rushing attack to sustain itself the rest of the way.
The Bobcats were able to turn the game into a field position battle the rest of the way, putting up just six points in the second half, but relentlessly forcing The Huskies to start deep in their own territory. True freshman quarterback Tommy Fiedler handled the Bobcats’ pressure well after entering the game, but the long field often proved to be too much for someone taking his first career college snaps.
Ohio’s win over Northern Illinois guarantees it an eight-win season for the first time since 2012, when the Bobcats finished with a 9-4 record. It also gives the Bobcats three straight November wins for the first time since 2011.
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