Next game
Who: Ohio Bobcats (7-0, 3-0 MAC East) vs. Miami RedHawks (3-4, 2-1 MAC East)
When: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Yager Stadium (24,286), Oxford
TV: SportsTime Ohio
Radio: WMOH-AM (1450), WONE-AM (980), WDBZ-AM (1230), WFMG-FM (101.3)
Series: Miami leads 51-35-2
Frank Solich is a low-key guy who pounds away at fundamentals and consistency.
He has no problem calling himself boring and will always choose substance over flash, and it’s showed during his eight-year run at the helm of Ohio University’s football program.
The Bobcats have played in three straight bowl games and are ranked 23rd in this week’s Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls. They are 7-0 and headed for Yager Stadium in Oxford to face Miami on Saturday.
“We certainly appreciate the fact that we are in the national rankings,” Solich said Monday morning. “However, we understand what that’s all about. Getting there is one thing. Being able to stay there is another.”
This is an OU squad that started the season like a rocket, going on the road and toppling Penn State 24-14 in the first game of the post-Joe Paterno era.
The Bobcats’ last two victories weren’t pretty (37-34 over winless Massachusetts and 38-31 over 1-6 Buffalo), thanks in part to a rash of defensive injuries. But they keep winning and are coming off a bye week.
“We gave them quite a bit of time off. I think they earned that,” Solich said. “With the physical games that we’ve been playing, it seemed to make sense to do that. They came back and seemed to be rejuvenated.
“Obviously, they know of the task ahead of them in terms of playing Miami. Last year was a great, great ballgame where we hung on to win it at the end. We expect it to be another game similar to that.”
Solich, who posted a 58-19 record in six seasons as Nebraska’s head coach and is 57-40 in Athens, will make sure his players are focused. That’s part of his daily routine, especially as Ohio’s national status has risen. The Bobcats are 24th in the Bowl Championship Series standings this week – it’s the first time they’ve ever been in that Top 25.
“We’ve tried to stay away from any kind of conversation that looks too far down the road,” Solich said. “I think once we take our sights off of just preparing for one game at a time and trying to improve the areas that we need to improve on, we’re not going to get it done.”
OU is averaging 448.1 yards and 36.4 points per contest with an offense spearheaded by redshirt junior quarterback Tyler Tettleton.
Tettleton, who missed a game with an injury, has completed 108-of-179 passes for 1,343 yards and 12 touchdowns with just one interception. He threw for 3,302 yards and 28 TDs last year while running 166 times for 658 yards and 10 scores.
This team is balanced, averaging 217.3 yards per game on the ground and 230.9 through the air. Redshirt junior Beau Blankenship is a bruising runner (198 carries, 951 yards, six TDs), and redshirt senior Bakari Bussey (21 catches, 215 yards) from Lakota West High School is among the top receivers.
Defensively, the news isn’t so good, despite the play of redshirt junior linebacker Keith Moore, who has a team-high 58 total tackles. The injury bug has been actively biting, and Ohio is giving up 259.6 passing yards per game.
Consequently, Solich is concerned about Miami quarterback Zac Dysert (167-of-267, 1,914 yards, 14 TDs).
“Teams have been throwing on us, so we’re going to need to step that part of the game up,” Solich said. “We need to start getting some more interceptions (OU has seven). We’ll start off as usual trying to stop the ground game and hopefully play sound defense.
“It’s a case where we do have some depth in our program,” he added of OU’s injury list. “If these injuries would’ve happened three, four, five years ago, we would’ve definitely struggled to win football games. But we’re hanging in there.”
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