In a season-opening 34-31 loss at Rutgers last Thursday, Ohio’s defense made strides throughout the second half that allowed the Bobcats to rally from a 17-point halftime deficit before falling short.
The Scarlet Knights gained 252 of their 399 total yards over the first two quarters. That’s also when Rutgers managed all four of its touchdowns, three of which the offense produced before a poor snap on a punt led to a block that amounted to the Scarlet Knights’ fourth TD.
“The defensive staff made some adjustments to try to put a little bit more pressure on the quarterback in some different ways,” first-year OU head coach Brian Smith said. “The thing that showed up the most was our guys more getting comfortable that hadn’t had as much experience, so you saw guys that as the game went on started playing faster and were able to play more physical because of it.”
Possessions were minimal and each team had eight. For the Scarlet Knights, it was essentially seven as their final series of the second quarter was one play — a kneel down — to mark the end of the half.
Yet over Rutgers’ three second-half series, the Bobcats surrendered only three points. OU forced a punt on the Scarlet Knights’ first possession of the second half, while RU got what proved to be a game-winning 26-yard field goal on its next series.
Rutgers successfully ran out the clock to end the game on its only other possession of the second half, one that began with 6:41 to play in the fourth quarter and featured a fourth-and-7 conversion that sealed the outcome.
The Scarlet Knights finished with 59 plays and 6.8 yards per play, while finding a lot of success through the air as quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis completed 18-of-23 passes for 252 yards.
Ohio had the game’s only sack, but struggled to create havoc and did not force a turnover.
Now as the Bobcats (0-1) prepare to welcome West Virginia (1-0) to Peden Stadium for Saturday’s 4 p.m. matchup, Ohio’s defense figures to be tested in a different way than much of what it saw at Rutgers.
Under head coach Rich Rodriguez, the Mountaineers aspire to utilize a faster tempo than any team in college football. WVU ran 76 plays last Saturday in a 45-3 season-opening win against Robert Morris, and that number would’ve been significantly higher were it not for three lost fumbles over a stretch of four plays in the second quarter.
“West Virginia’s going to play at much faster tempo than Rutgers did,” Smith said. “That’s more of what their culture is, who they are and what the coach wants to be. So there’s more prep in that this week in terms of how we handle tempo, getting our calls in, getting to the line faster and things like that.”
Rodriguez did not name a starting quarterback in advance of the matchup with the Colonials, but to little surprise, he settled on senior Nicco Marchiol. The southpaw was efficient in completing 17-of-20 passes for 224 yards with one touchdown to go with an additional 56 yards and one score on the ground. Yet outside of a 46-yard touchdown pass to Cam Vaughn, Marchiol mostly threw short to intermediate passes and did not challenge the defense vertically.
“Nicco is an accurate thrower. Some of his throws in the last game were off run plays, [run-pass options] and he could’ve thrown more of them,” Rodriguez said. “In the second half, we shut a lot of those down and were just going to hand the ball off, so to speak. He’s really comfortable with RPOs, comfortable with the route packages that we have and he’s a very accurate guy.
“There’s a couple he and the other quarterbacks missed, but he has a good feel for that. He has a strong enough arm and you saw with a beautiful throw on the deep ball. But his strength is he’s an accurate thrower. One of the best attributes you can have as a quarterback is accuracy and he’s an accurate guy.”
The Mountaineers had 53 run plays and 23 pass plays in their opener, and while some of that ratio can be attributed to the opponent and score, Rodriguez is regarded as having a run-first mentality.
Smith expects that to be the case Saturday as the Mountaineers look to challenge an Ohio defense that allowed 147 rushing yards on 36 carries at Rutgers. Excluding Kaliakmanis, who logged minus-4 yards on five attempts, the Scarlet Knights averaged nearly 4.9 yards per rush.
“There were some turnover issues that they had and that tends to maybe happen in a first game. Once they kind of settled down and were able to get things rolling, you saw what their potential is,” Smith said. “Rich Rod’s a very good coach and they’re going to play fast on offense. They’re going to play with a lot of tempo. He coaches his teams hard. They’re typically going to be physical and live on running the football. I appreciate the brand that he represents.”