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Freshmen lead Bobcats past Vandals

Ouellette, Poling have huge games for Ohio


Lonnie McMillan Photo
ATHENS – Freshmen rose to the occasion and helped Ohio take a 36-24 victory against Idaho in its home opener Saturday night at Peden Stadium.

Walk-on true freshman A.J. Ouellette rushed for 130 yards and two touchdowns on offense and redshirt freshman Quentin Poling intercepted three passes as the Bobcats held on after building a first-half 17-0 advantage.

“There’s a lot of confidence in individuals within our team and I think they like it when they get an opportunity, and when they did, they show well,” Ohio coach Frank Solich said. “There were a number of guys who stepped up and played big for us.”

Ouellette quickly has risen up the depth chart and saw almost all the playing time at running back after Daz’mond Patterson fumbled for the third time this year. Poling took over at middle linebacker to begin this season after a summer to Ben Russell.

Redshirt freshman Sebastian Smith also was big for the Bobcats (2-2) with three catches for 65 yards and a touchdown and another that was wiped out by a penalty. Also key was J.D. Sprague, who had to step in after Derrius Vick was injured in the first half. Sprague went 8-of-13 passing for 167 yards and ran for 29 yards and a touchdown.

“We just had to tough it out,” Sprague said. “It’s overcoming adversity.”

Despite a quick start that it looking like the Bobcats could run away, they found themselves in a battle in the second half as the Vandals (0-3) got as close as 29-24 on a Matt Linehan 52-yard touchdown pass to Joshua McCain with 6:34 remaining.

Ohio’s offense put the game away, though, driving 62 yards for a score that made it a two-touchdown game. Ouellette’s clinching touchdown with 2:09 remaining came on a trick play on third-and-goal from the 3. He received a pitch-back from Sprague, who then went out then went out for a potential pass, but instead, Ouellette turn and cut the ball inside untouched into the end zone.

His first touchdown of the game also came on a trick play. Vick moved out from under center as if to give an audible to lineman and the ball was snapped directly to Ouellette, who plunged in from a yard away on third-and-goal in the second quarter. It gave the Bobcats a 17-point lead.

Lonnie McMillan Photo
“We put those in all week and when we called it, I was just pumped to see it,” Ouellette said.

Any chance Idaho still had was eliminated with Poling’s third interception of the game.

Poling’s second interception might have been the biggest one. The Vandals stopped a promising Bobcats drive and forced Josiah Yazdani’s third field goal of the game, a 25-yarder that made it 23-17 in Ohio’s favor, giving Idaho possession with a chance to take the lead.

The Vandals went backward, and forced to throw on third-and-19, Poling stepped in front of a Linehan pass and returned it to the Idaho 5-yard line. Three plays later, Sprague plunged in for a 1-yard touchdown. Sebastian Smith made a leaping grab of a two-point conversion attempt that was called good in the corner of the end zone, but upon relay, it was ruled he did not control the ball all the way to the ground, keeping Ohio from going up a full two scores with 7:25 remaining.

Vick connected with Smith on a 12-yard touchdown pass for the game’s first points less than five minutes into the game. Poling’s first interception stopped a promising Idaho drive inside the Ohio 20-yard line.

“The offense did a wonderful job scoring points, which forced the ball to pass the ball and any time a team has to throw the ball that much, you can expect interceptions,” Poling said.

The Bobcats went up 10-0 on a 32-yard Yazdani field goal on the first play of the second quarter, and Ouellette’s first touchdown added to the advantage.

Idaho answered with its first score on a 1-yard run by Elijhaa Penny with less than six minutes left in the half, and the Vandals got a stop and kept points off the board with a sack of Sprague that pushed the Bobcats out of field goal range. They then embarked on a nine-play, 86-yard drive, but came up empty when Ohio stuffed Penny on fourth-and-goal from the 1.

Ohio’s lead went back to two scores on the opening possession of the second half on a 23-yard Yazdani field goal.

Linehan threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to McCain to get the Vandals within six, and Yazdani missed from 50 yards away on Ohio’s next possession. The Vandals’ attempt to drive for a score to take the lead stalled, though, and they settled for a 47-yard Austin Rehkow field goal to make it 20-17 late in the third quarter.

Chase Cochran had only two catches, but they both were good for big gains and he finished with 83 yards. Jordan Reid made a huge grab for 29 yards and Smith went up to make a couple of big plays.

“It was huge, in terms of the big catches that were made by a number of our receivers,” Solich said. “They’re not household names necessarily. Chase, from the previous year, people know about him, but Reid, Sebastian Smith and you can go through a series of those guys, they just came up with a lot of big plays to keep drives alive.”

On the other side, McCain was huge for the Vandals with five receptions for 149 yards. Justin Podrabsky had eight grabs for 74 yards, and Deon Watson and Richard Montgomery had seven catches each.

Linehan, a redshirt freshman for the Vandals, was 33-of-55 passing for 353 yards, but the Vandals rushed for only 64 yards on 27 attempts. The Bobcats had balance with 269 rushing and 235 passing yards.

“We showed progress as an offensive football team,” Solich said. “They’re an aggressive group of guys and they play hard. The coaching staff has those guys playing hard and believing in themselves. The quarterback and receivers, those show, and Quentin shows with his three interceptions, but what doesn’t show as much as the linemen. We’re playing young guys and they’re improving. We are getting better as an offense. We can’t slow down. We have to keep getting better.”

Ohio hosts Eastern Illinois at 2 p.m. Saturday.








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