Last Saturday’s 56-28 victory against Eastern Michigan quite literally was a career day for redshirt senior quarterback Tyler Tettleton.
Ohio’s all-time passing yardage leader threw for a career-high 375 yards to pair with four touchdown passes, which were also his highest single-game total in the signal caller’s time with the Bobcats.
Efficiency was also a strong suit for Tettleton against the Eagles, as he completed 23 of his 30 passing attempts, good for a completion percentage of 76.6 percent.
The only blemish on his stat line was a second quarter interception that deflected off from the hands of sophomore running back Daz’mond Patterson’s hands and into the chest of Eastern Michigan linebacker Ike Spearman.
Redshirt senior wide receiver Donte Foster, who hauled in 11 catches for 143 yards and one touchdown, said the relationship between the receiving core and Tettleton are key in the success of the passing game.
“It’s just great practice and great chemistry with us and Tyler,” Foster said. “We work with him every day at practice and that has a lot to do with it. You know, you practice how you play, and he hits us in practice and that carries over to the game.”
But Tettleton, who has thrown for more than 300 yards each of the past two games, credits the aerial success to defenses focusing on limiting a running game that averaged 203 yards per game last season.
Eastern Michigan was loading the line of scrimmage, often putting eight men in the box and rushing the gaps to prevent the Bobcats from gaining any traction on the ground.
Ohio did move the ball fairly efficiently on the ground against the Eagles, notching 4.4 yards per carry and matching last season’s per carry average. But on the season, the Bobcats are averaging 3.88 yards per carry, which is 88th in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Tettleton said that he hopes the recent success of the passing attack makes life easier for his running backs as the season progresses.
“Hopefully, with us throwing the ball around a lot, it’ll open up the run game soon,” Tettleton said. “We’ve just got to keep that going.”
And coach Frank Solich agreed with the sentiment of his veteran signal-caller, adding that the offense is trying to air the ball out more on the early downs in order to spark the running game.
“We looked at throwing a bit more on first and ten and trying to open up the throwing game a little bit more,” Solich said. “We think, in doing that, it will help us with the running game somewhere down the road.”
Solich also indicated that his team won’t be run heavy as it did in the past, as the team has so much talent when it comes to passing the football.
“We seem to be a good throwing football team,” Solich said. “We’ve got really good receivers, so I think you’re going to see a fair amount of that taking place from here on out. But again, we still need to establish the run.”
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