Well, hello from Court Street! Penny Trautman here, standing on the bricks, where every Bobcat fan should stand at least once a week. If you've never been to Athens, the streets downtown are paved in brick, and so is my philosophy of football: lay one good block at a time, keep it level, and before long you've built a road nobody can wash out. Ohio has laid four good bricks in a row. Let's keep paving.
Part 1: A 48-7 Brick Wall in Sacramento
Ohio beat Sacramento State 48-7 on Saturday night at Hornet Stadium, and AP says it's four straight wins for the Bobcats. We're 5-2 and 3-0 in the MAC. That's a sturdy foundation.
The offense was a masonry crew. Ohio piled up 30 first downs and 468 yards, per ESPN's box score, and ran for 265 yards. Duncan Brune scored on runs of 3 and 14 yards. Victor Rosa ran one in from 16. Irving Brown ran eight times for 87 yards, including a 50-yarder, and scored from 2 yards out late. Levi Davis added a 14-yard touchdown run. Nick Poulos went 11 of 14 for 165 yards, and he hit Preston Bowman on a 67-yard catch-and-run touchdown about two minutes into the third quarter that made it 34-0. Will Hryszko made a 50-yard field goal and a 37-yarder and all six extra points.
The defense held Sac State scoreless for three quarters. Barry Dillon picked off a pass. Michael Molnar had a sack and a pass breakup, and he leads the team with 52 tackles. Darren James-Hamilton made six tackles. Ohio had the ball for 33:11 and committed zero turnovers.
Not bad for a long flight. Bricks travel well, as long as you pack them carefully.
And look at how this streak was built. The Bobcats started 1-2 after losing at Nebraska and at South Alabama, where they scored 36 and still came up short. Then they beat Stonehill 35-7. Then came a 13-10 grinder at Kent State, the kind of game where you have to set every brick by hand. Then a 31-14 win over Central Michigan at home, and then this one. Before all that, in September, the Bobcats beat Jacksonville State 29-27. That's a team that's learned how to win close and how to win big. Riley Neer has 32 catches for 441 yards and five touchdowns this season. Brune has 330 rushing yards. And Poulos hasn't thrown an interception all year, per AP. Not one. I'd call that a well-pointed wall.
Part 2: Eastern Michigan Comes to Peden
Saturday, 4 p.m. Eastern, ESPNU, Eastern Michigan visits Peden Stadium.
A word of respect first, because that's how we do it on Court Street. Eastern Michigan is 4-4 and 3-1 in the MAC. It beat Akron, UMass and Sacramento State. Noah Kim has thrown for 1,678 yards and 11 touchdowns, and he threw two touchdown passes against Toledo on Saturday. Joshua Long has 38 catches. Zach Mowchan has 58 tackles, and Quincy Byas has four sacks. And EMU doesn't beat itself: AP ranks it 15th in FBS in penalty yards. That's a good, disciplined team.
Now, the inspection report. All numbers from AP.
Toledo beat Eastern Michigan 34-14 on Saturday in Ypsilanti and led 31-7 at halftime. Toledo's defense got six sacks and nine tackles for loss and stopped the Eagles on downs four times. And Eastern Michigan ran for 34 yards. Thirty-four yards on 28 carries. Friends, I've seen longer walks from my front door to the bricks.
AP's preview ranks EMU's rushing offense 128th in FBS, at 105 yards a game. Its offense overall is 123rd in yards. Its scoring offense is 110th, at 21.5 points a game. And Ohio's rushing offense ranks 24th, at 207 yards a game. One of us builds a road on the ground. The other one is stuck in the mud.
Here's what I'm watching. AP ranks our third-down defense 106th, so I'd like to see the Bobcats get off the field a little faster. Kim converts. But if Eastern can't run, it's playing on one leg, and Ohio's pass rush, led by Ike Ackerman's 4.5 sacks, can go after Kim the way Toledo just did.
The history, from CollegeFootballData.com: Ohio has won the last five meetings with Eastern Michigan, including 35-10 at Peden in 2024 and 28-21 in Ypsilanti last season. Ohio leads the series 22-12-1.
And the Bobcats are the reigning example of how to build something. Wikipedia lists Ohio's 2024 MAC championship, its first since 1968, plus five MAC East titles. That's how a program gets laid down. One brick at a time, with good mortar. And before the MAC, Wikipedia says, Ohio won six Buckeye Athletic Association titles in the 1920s and 1930s. This program has been stacking bricks for a long time.
A Word About Peden
Wikipedia says Peden Stadium has been home to the Bobcats since 1929, sitting on the banks of the Hocking River, and it's the oldest college football venue in the MAC. It seats 24,000 and has been called Frank Solich Field at Peden Stadium since 2022. Old buildings are the best buildings, friends. They're built with bricks. Eastern Michigan's field is famous for being gray. Ours is famous for still standing after nearly a century. Wikipedia says the place was built for $185,000 and finished in 1929, and it was renamed for Don Peden, who coached and ran athletics at Ohio for 27 years, after he retired in 1946. They added the north end zone stands in 1986. That's a building with a family tree.
Tales From Two Towns
Athens. Athens is a town of 23,849 on the Hocking River in Appalachian Ohio, about 65 miles southeast of Columbus, per Wikipedia. Ohio University was chartered here in 1804, the first public institution of higher learning in the Northwest Territory. WOUB, the public media station here, notes our brick tradition goes back to the Athens Block Company, founded in 1891, and folks still feel strongly about keeping the bricks on the streets. Athens also throws the Halloween Block Party, which Wikipedia calls an international spectacle, and the town has a reputation as the "World Capital of Halloween." Our university was the first public one in the whole Northwest Territory. Our streets are made of bricks. And our ghosts have tenure.
Ypsilanti. Ypsilanti is a nice city of 20,648 on the Huron River, and its fans have spent a long time explaining that they're not Ann Arbor. I respect that. But Wikipedia lists a water tower among the things Ypsilanti is best known for. A water tower! It's 147 feet tall and it was built in 1890, and they're very proud of it. We have an entire university district of brick buildings. They have a very tall pipe.
And Eastern Michigan's teams were once called the Normalites, from 1899 to 1928, according to Wikipedia. The Normalites! Ohio's teams are the Bobcats. I'd take a bobcat over a Normalite in any alley in Athens.
Penny's Building Checklist
1. Lay the foundation with the running game. 207 a game is good mortar. 2. Make Eastern run. It ran for 34 yards last week. 3. Get off the field on third down. Close the door and latch it.
Brick by brick, Bobcats.
My call: Ohio Bobcats 31, Eastern Michigan Eagles 19.