Toledo head coach Jason Candle addressed the media following tonight's 77-21 Ohio State victory:
We played a monster opponent tonight. It was as impressive of a performance by quarterback I’ve seen, which kind of overshadowed the brilliant play of our quarterback. I thought (Dequan Finn) had some really tough plays plays.
Candle had high praise for Ohio State on both sides of the ball.
Give Coach (Jim) Knowles and that defense a lot of credit. They'd given up one touchdown all year long coming into this football game. They're a good defense. Coach Day has them clicking on offense and playing at a high level. Defensively, not what we wanted to do or the outcome we wanted to have there...but hats off to Ohio State for putting a very efficient plan together in the 1st half of that football game.
Toledo had entered tonight ranked no.28 in the country in 3rd down defense, forcing 4th down 73% of the time. Tonight, Ohio State converted 11 of 13 3rd downs.
That's the adversity within the game, we hadn't dealt with that the first two weeks. We'd been lights out on 3rd down. When you have a powerful front and you can run the ball in those short-yardage situations and you have an accurate quarterback, you're tough to stop in 3rd and short.
Yeah, deflating is a term - that's a good term. You feel like you've got them stopped and they push it through and they're on schedule again.
Candle believes the Ohio State defense is only going to improve.
That's a good defense. That's a good scheme. They're only going to expand on what they have, you know, you saw a bunch of different looks, it's pressure at the line of scrimmage a lot of times, they have enough coverage guys where they can bail out of there and play man...when you can do that, you allow those pass rushers to get home.
Toledo did not enter tonight expecting to be treated like a paycheck opponent.
I know the national landscape is like, we're some little MAC team here, but there are proud guys in that locker room. These dudes fight. It's important to them. It's important to respond. There's some hurtin' guys in there right now, some guys have never been beaten like this in their life - including me.
We knew the team we were playing would force some mistakes and create some adversities for us. I'm looking forward to getting into that tape and seeing how our guys did respond to that.
The Rockets travel to San Diego next week to take on the Aztecs, while Ohio State hosts Wisconsin in what will be the third night game this season at Ohio Stadium.
- #3 Ohio State 77, Toledo 21
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