With an extra day of preparation for Friday’s game against Central Michigan, coming off Thursday’s win at Kent State, University of Toledo coach Jason Candle joked he didn’t know what to do with so much time leading up to the game.
With the midweek schedule that dominates Mid-American Conference football from late October into November, it has been rare for Toledo (6-5, 4-3 MAC) to get a full week to put together a game plan. The Rockets went through a stretch of three games in 12 days at the end of October.
Jokes aside, Candle said he used the extra day to get in some much-needed practice time early in the week.
“We had a light workout [Sunday] morning,” Candle said. “We went out for about 50 minutes and had a really good pace and tempo to it. We were working on some things with our younger players, but also some things that showed up in the videotape that we have to get corrected — some leverage things on defense, some tackling stuff, and then on offense, we worked on some perimeter blocking and things that I think weren’t as sharp as they needed to be at Kent.”
Awaiting the Rockets at the Glass Bowl will be a foundering Chippewas team that are 1-10 overall and 0-7 in the MAC. They haven’t played since a Nov. 10 home loss to Bowling Green and have had some time to build toward one final chance to get a conference win.
“I think they probably had some time to reflect and find out what maybe they haven’t been doing so well,” Candle said. “They have ample time to prepare and get a good game plan together and go play in their last game. This is their senior class’ last go-round too, don’t forget that.
“I expect a physical game for 60 minutes and I expect them to come in and play hard and fight. Some teams don’t play hard all the time. This is not that organization. These guys play hard and run to the football and do what they are supposed to do.”
After a loss to Northern Illinois two weeks ago, Toledo was eliminated from West Division title contention and will not have a chance to defend last season’s MAC title in the championship game in Detroit.
With all that off the table, Toledo responded well with a 56-34 win at Kent State and hopes to build on that.
Candle said the team not only wants to send its seniors out in style but also wants to use the end of this season as a building block for the future.
“I think our guys are playing for the seniors, but they are also playing to set up the future,” Candle said. “I think in football, and, sometimes in today’s sports, you lose the personal pride of playing really well and what the videotape looks like of me as an individual. It’s a long road. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. There are a lot of evaluation processes along the way and you have to make sure that whatever you put on tape, that is your resume. The personal pride of continuing to put a good product on there, our guys are practicing hard for that part of it too.”
Toledo became bowl eligible with the Kent State win, and the Rockets are looking to add another regular-season win to their resume before a potential bowl game.
“For some people, myself included, this could be the last one or two games that you ever put on shoulder pads and play a competitive game,” UT senior receiver Cody Thompson said. “You never know when your career could come to an end or anything like that. So you want to go out and do everything you can and leave it out on the field every day and every play.
“I’m just excited to have an opportunity of potentially making a bowl game and having another game with these seniors.”
First Published November 19, 2018, 5:59 p.m.
