NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Kylan Nelson stood dejected, leaning against a pole underneath Vanderbilt Stadium.
A few days ago, he was excited at the thought of a homecoming, excited about the return of friend and captain Javon Hagan and excited that Ohio had a chance to knock off a Power Five opponent.
But Saturday night, there was no excitement for the redshirt senior safety.
Instead, he was trying to find words to describe the Bobcats’ slow start, which was enough to sink Ohio in a 45-31 loss to Virginia.
“They just came out and punched us real hard in the mouth,” he said.
The three touchdowns that the Bobcats allowed in the first quarter weren’t just because of a slow start, it was bad football.
All of the hype around the return of Hagan and Jamal Hudson to Ohio’s secondary vanished when Cavaliers’ quarterback Bryce Perkins threw an 86-yard touchdown pass.
The hope of improvement from the front seven between Week 1 and Week 3 seemed decimated when running back Jordan Ellis gashed the Bobcats for touchdown runs of 18 yards and 75 yards.
Nelson was seeing guys flying right through the A and B gaps, and right by him too. Missed tackles weren’t hard to find, either. On Virginia’s first play from scrimmage, Nelson missed a tackle, which resulted in the first touchdown of the game.
There’s no way to dress it up — and Nelson agrees — Ohio just looked bad defensively. Three scores of over 70 yards is unacceptable.
In two games Ohio has allowed 1,197 total yards, which puts them at an average of 598.5 yards a game.
“It’s hard to say, I think we have the right mindset, but we may have been timid,” he said. “We really just need to start better because obviously we can hang. We held them to seven in the second half.”
One of the reasons Nelson thinks that Ohio struggled in the first quarter was because of adjusting on the fly. The Bobcats have become too used to putting stock in what opponents have done against other teams, not adjusting to small changes a team such as Virginia (2-1) may make to beat Ohio.
He knows it’s a poor excuse, but he thinks it’s one of the reasons the Bobcats have struggled to start in big moments.
After going in for halftime, it seemed that Ohio finally had a grasp of the Virginia offense. The Bobcats only allowed a touchdown in the second half — just a touchdown — but it was a big one. Perkins threw a 77-yard touchdown with 6:01 left in the game.
“It’s just frustrating,” coach Frank Solich said. “Giving up as many as explosives plays as we gave up is just bad football.”
Nelson knows he’s a captain, he knows what a quality Bobcat defense looks like.
Ohio (1-1) needs to do it now. It needs to start faster, it needs to stop allowing big plays and it needs to adjust. He’s been a part of it before when the Bobcats ranked No. 10 in rush defense last season.
Those are all attainable, what isn’t attainable is beating a Power Five team this season or an undefeated season.
Both left with the excitement Saturday night.
Now the dejection Nelson feels after three weeks and two football games needs to shift quickly, or he could be looking at a senior year he won’t look back on fondly.
"We can't start slow,” he said. “We just can't do that because we can hang with any team. We are capable of doing great things, but we just can't start off so poorly."
