Recently named starting QB Derrius Vick will look to get the Bobcats started on the right foot in 2015.
This season won’t begin with an afternoon-long tailgate outside of Peden Stadium with fans waiting to catch their first glimpse of the Bobcats on a day that weirdly feels too warm and sunny for football.
It won’t begin on a Saturday, with an all-out assault of scores pouring in from throughout the country, giving you the familiar feeling that summer’s really over, and that football is here.
For Ohio, this season will begin in a 16,000-seat dome in Moscow, Idaho, on a Thursday night — somewhere the Bobcats haven’t played at since Ohio head coach Frank Solich was a high school coach in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Nothing will feel familiar. But when the Bobcats take the field for the opening kickoff, none of that will matter.
“We’re just excited to get to hit someone other than our teammates,” sophomore running back A.J. Ouellette said. “It’s just a mental game now. We’ve got all the physical preparation out of the way with camp. Now it’s just down to the mental side and knowing what we’re doing.”
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Thursday’s meeting between the two teams will be their fourth all-time in a series that restarted last year at Peden Stadium when the Bobcats beat the Vandals, 36-24, in their third game of the season. From there, the Bobcats finished just 6-6 on the season, while Idaho would fare much worse, closing 2014 out with a 1-10 record.
The 36 points Ohio scored in last year’s matchup was the second-highest single game total the Bobcats put up, and one of just three occasions when their offense topped the 30-point threshold. So, a point total in Thursday’s contest wouldn’t necessarily be an accurate forecast of things to come — but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a vital momentum-starter for an offense that doesn’t appear to be much better equipped than last season.
“We’re hoping to see an improved football team,” Solich said. “We should be better. Fall camp was very beneficial for us. We have somewhat of an experienced ball club coming into the season. We got to see where we are and how much improving we have to do and see how our guys are going to respond to another season. This is a huge trip for us and they’re looking forward to it.”
Defensively, the Bobcats are poised to give the Vandals fits. All three starting linebackers are back from last season, along with three starters in the secondary and a preseason USA Today All-MAC selection in junior defensive end Tarell Basham.
Basham said it’s difficult to prepare for a team in the first week of the season, but he feels the Bobcats have a strong game plan going into Thursday.
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“You don’t know if a team is going to come out in a completely different offense, or if they’re going to come out and just completely switch up their game,” Basham said. “But, considering the coaches they have and the players they have returning, we expect certain things. So, we prepare for the things that we can expect.”
Ohio knows a good amount of information about Idaho. The Vandals brought in a new defensive coordinator for this season who has changed the team’s core defense from a 4-3 to a 3-4, something that will be a significant adjustment for Ohio. The Bobcats mostly practiced against a 4-3 defense in fall camp.
Offensively, Idaho will return its quarterback and leading rusher from a season ago, while many of the receiving weapons from 2014 are gone. Quarterback Matt Linehan garnered 353 yards through the air and two touchdowns last season against the Bobcats.
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