Nathan Rourke might be the best quarterback to ever play for Ohio.
If he’s not that, he’s certainly in the conversation. He’s already the program’s all-time touchdowns leader — a record he’s broken every week since Week 3 against Marshall — and it’s never been Rourke’s fault in the Bobcats’ four losses this season.
With six games left, however, his potential appears to be going to waste in his final season at Ohio. That appears to be a possibility after the Bobcats failed to take advantage of another memorable performance from their senior quarterback in a 39-36 loss to Northern Illinois on Saturday at Peden Stadium.
Against the best passing defense in the Mid-American Conference, Rourke went 16-for-31 with two touchdowns. He also totaled 79 rushing yards and one touchdown on 12 attempts. The best moment, though, was his receiving touchdown on a “Philly Special” play from wide receiver D.L. Knock in the second quarter.
Rourke couldn’t do much else to give Ohio a win, yet none of his work mattered.
That’s on the defense, which allowed NIU to score points on its last five drives and hit a game-winning field goal with no time on the clock.
Rourke was never going to blame the defense, though.
“What’s more deflating, in my opinion, is that we weren’t able to put them away when we couldn’t move the ball in the third quarter,“ Rourke said with a blank face. “It’s tough to put the defense in that kind of position when the momentum is all on their side.”
Sure, Ohio didn’t score any points in the third quarter, but it had a 21-10 halftime lead. If Ohio’s defense was banking on Rourke to consistently score against NIU, which averaged 28 points allowed per game despite playing three Power 5 schools in its nonconference, it was badly mistaken.
And yet, Rourke lived up to their announced hope as best he could.
NIU had an answer for each of them but only because the Bobcats’ defense never found a way to make a stop.
“I’m definitely disappointed,“ senior safety Javon Hagan said. “But we just got to keep going, man. We’re just going to get in the film room, correct our mistakes, make some adjustments and keep going.”
Ohio presumably did plenty of video review over its bye. Any solutions that came from that now appear to be short-term fixes.
Right now, Ohio doesn’t have an answer for its defensive problems. Coach Frank Solich and Hagan both said they have to look at the tape again, and their answers for missed tackles, blown coverages and an inability to make late-game stops don’t seem too definitive.
“We did not play very well in the second half defensively,“ Solich said. “That is bothersome. We got a lot of work to do and a lot of investigating on our end as we look at the film.”
Ohio might be good enough to beat the less talented teams in MAC. That’s what having an excellent dual-threat quarterback in Rourke should do for the Bobcats.
The loss to NIU — and even Ohio’s narrow win over Buffalo on Oct. 5 — however, showed that the Bobcats may not have enough to give Rourke a trip to Detroit for the MAC Championship.
Ohio can review all the tape it wants. After six games, however, it appears that the final season for the best quarterback in program history could be his most uneventful.
If that’s the case, the shame will likely fall on the defense.
