MUNCIE, Ind. — And so the fun begins.
The Toledo football team wrapped up the finger-food portion of its schedule Saturday with a 13-6 win over Ball State that came as tough as the afternoon was raw.
Now comes the good part, beginning with the juicy entree of a trip to Miami (Ohio).
Are the Rockets for real?
We’re about to find out.
So far, Toledo (6-1, 3-0) has snacked on a who’s who of … who? The combined record of its first seven opponents entering Saturday was 8-27, and, if you want to use that to diminish or denounce its record, fair enough. The numbers are what they are.
Next weekend in Oxford — where the Rockets will meet Miami (6-1, 3-0) in the game of the Mid-American Conference season — will be revelatory.
But …
There’s something to be said for just getting the job done, again and again, the who, where, and how be damned.
How many times in recent years has Toledo lost games in which it was expected to roll? I counted, and, by one measure, no team in the country has more such defeats. Since 2019, the Rockets have dropped eight games as at least a seven-point favorite. (Wisconsin has the next-most, with six.)
This year, they’ve won every game they were supposed to and almost beat Illinois.
In the press box at Scheumann Stadium late Saturday, the writer who covers Ball State cracked: “Do you guys ever get tired of covering wins?”
Point is, for all the hand-wringing from many fans, it could be slightly worse than … winning six straight games. (Ask Ohio how easy it is to win on the road after its double-digit loss at two-win Northern Illinois.)
Easy is saying you’re going to wipe the field with one-win Ball State. Harder is doing it on a cold, wet, windy day in a setting with less atmosphere than a cornfield (the attendance was approximately 217, give or take a few thousand).
“I say it all the time: Man’s greatest struggle is being who you said you were going to be all the time,” Toledo coach Jason Candle said. “You'd love to have the stadium packed. You'd love it to be 75 and sunny. You'd love it to be on primetime TV.
“But not every game is going to be that way. We've got to find ways to bring our own energy and find a way to rally around one another and win the tough moments, and I thought today we did a good job of that.”
Good enough, at least.
No, this wasn’t one to write home about, and, honestly, the less said about this game, the better.
The Rockets spent most of the game playing with fire in the rain.
If it wasn’t Peny Boone losing a fumble at the Ball State 8 in the first quarter — one play after Dequan Finn sailed a would-be touchdown pass over an open Larry Stephens — it was Boone bouncing it outside on 4th-and-1 at the Ball State 43 (he lost five yards) in the second quarter. Or Junior Vandeross III dropping a perfectly thrown deep ball by Finn on another fourth-down gamble in the third quarter.
But, in the end, UT never got burned.
It won with a little luck (Ball State dialed up a game-tying wheel route in the final minute and running back Rico Barfield flat dropped a would-be 78-yard TD pass), a lot of defense (UT’s 38 passing yards allowed was its fewest since at least 2000), and, above all, the classic goat-to-hero transformation of Boone.
Let’s talk about the goat first.
As mentioned, Boone had a couple unfortunate early plays, from the maddening (his third fumble of the season) to the mystifying. The latter was his dash on 4th-and-1, when the 6-foot-1, 242-pound junior took a called inside zone run and instead — with Ball State selling out to stop him — raced to the boundary in search of a home run.
“They ended up blitzing the whole defense, but me being as big as I am, I could have put my foot in the ground and gotten the yard,” Boone said. “At the end of the day, I’ve got to stick my foot in the ground and get that first down for the team.”
Candle was in Boone’s face after the play, and he sat his for the next two possessions.
But the star running back’s day was only beginning.
Where Boone was an emotional mess after he made mistakes last season, this time the big transfer from Maryland answered with humility and calm.
“He had that look on his face that said, ‘When you’re ready to put me back in, I’ll be ready to make plays for my team,’” Candle said.
And that’s what he did.
Even with the conditions limiting the passing game — Finn threw for 166 yards — and the league’s second best rush D (112 yards per game) stacking the box, Boone made his hero turn. He put his foot down and, behind one tough offensive line, got one tough yard after another.
Boone rushed for 110 yards on 13 carries in a second half, punctuated by his game-winning 3-yard score with 1:31 remaining. He finished with 153 yards on 22 carries.
He answered when it mattered most, just like Toledo, again.
Give the Rockets a ton of credit for taking care of their business.
Now, let the fun begin.
“We’re ready,” Boone said, “to show what we can do.”
First Published October 15, 2023, 12:36 a.m.
