Blowout leaves Green and White red in the face

by Joe Arnold
Staff Writer

Chad Brinker and head coach Brian Knorr ­ the two most recognizable faces associated with Ohio football ­ beat all of the critics to the punch in describing Saturday’s 31-0 loss to Northeastern.

“It’s hard to sit here and say that I’m not embarrassed about what happened tonight,” Brinker said at the post-game press conference. “Not to take anything away from (Northeastern), but as hard as we’ve worked and as much talent as we have, it’s just no excuse.”              

Minutes later, Knorr offered no excuses. He didn’t mention the ankle injuries to quarterbacks Dontrell Jackson and Fred Ray. He didn’t hide behind the loss of left guard Dennis Thompson and linebacker Ricky Cherry. Knorr, like any college coach who just dropped a game to an inferior team, shouldered the responsibility for the loss but not before delivering a veiled challenge to his seniors.

“It’s accountability,” he said. “Football is a very, very physical game, and you’re going to get hit hard. If you’re a senior, you gotta take care of the football. I’m very disappointed in some decision making and them not taking care of the football.”

A week after turning the ball over six times against Pittsburgh, the Bobcats had five giveaways against the Huskies.

Ten minutes before Knorr’s punchy question-and-answer session, the boys from Boston were all smiles in their press conference, answering questions with East Coast accents that Good Will Hunting’s Matt Damon and Ben Affleck could only hope to have had. Fresh off a 48-0 win against Division II Lock Haven a week earlier, the Huskies had their second win against a I-A opponent in three chances. Their only other victory came against Connecticut in 2000—Ohio’s fourth opponent this season.

Asked about playing just the third I-A team in the school’s history, Northeastern coach Don Brown told reporters how his team avoided becoming “wide-eyed” by the Ohio’s I-A football facilities and the game-day atmosphere: the team made the hour-long trip from the Best Western in Lancaster to workout in Peden Stadium on Friday.

“I didn’t want (Saturday night) to be the first time they had seen this place,” Brown said.

The Bobcats, not the Huskies, played like it was their first time on a football field, let alone on their new $800,000 Field Turf field. However, Ohio walked off the field with saucers for eyes. The team was not wide-eyed from the adrenaline rush of a home opener, but from the unforeseen pounding by the football juggernaut from the Atlantic-10.

The team had five turnovers, two missed field goals, just 141 yards of total offense and a slew of mistakes in a game that many saw as Ohio’s only “gimme” this season.

“We’re going to find out the true character of this football team,” Brinker said.

With Florida on Saturday and conference play beginning in three weeks, let’s just hope we have not already seen it.

­Arnold is a senior journalism student. Send him an e-mail at jarnold60@hotmail.com.