The Hillsdale College football team fell behind early on Saturday night and couldn’t recover, falling 45-34 to the University of Findlay Oilers in their season opener at Frank “Muddy” Waters Stadium.
Findlay’s offense scored almost at will, finishing with 587 total yards of offense. The Oilers never punted the entire game.
“We really created a lot of third down opportunities to get off the field and we just didn’t make any plays,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “They executed well. I think we’ve got to cover them a little tighter.”
The Chargers forced the Oilers into 14 third-down situations, but Findlay converted nine of them. Twice when they failed to move the chains on third down, the Oilers went for it on fourth down and converted.
“I don’t think we pressured the quarterback like we need to. We need to be in any quarterback’s face just to feel pressure,” Otterbein said. “We need to tackle a little better. I don’t think our tackling was terrible but it needs to improve some.”
Due to their strong offensive performance and Hillsdale’s slow start offensively, the Oilers dominated time of possession, controlling the ball nearly twice as long as the Chargers. Findlay held the ball for 39:29, while the Chargers had possession for just 20:31.
“We didn’t help the defense when it came to time of possession. That’s a two-way street too,” Otterbein said. “That takes both sides of the ball. They’ve got to get off the field on defense and we’ve got to stay on the field on offense.”
“As an offense we put a little bit of that on us at first because we hung them out to dry in the first quarter,” senior left guard Justice Karmie said. “We weren’t moving the ball well, and I think that got our defense back on their heels a little bit because Findlay is a really good offense.”
The Chargers went three-and-out in their opening possession, and Findlay responded with a methodical 11-play, 55-yard drive to take a 7-0 lead. The Chargers failed to convert a first down on their next possession as well. Hillsdale’s defense held Findlay to a missed field goal, but on the first play of the Chargers’ next possession, junior tailback Bennett Lewis fumbled the ball and Findlay’s Johnny Hopkins returned it 17 yards for the touchdown.
Hillsdale’s offense started to pick up steam after that, but Findlay never took their foot off the pedal.
“We got off to a slow start offensively and were never really able to catch up,” senior quarterback C.J. Mifsud said. “We ended up doing some pretty good things in the second half and we’ll be able to learn from our mistakes and build off of the good things we did to improve week to week.”
Mifsud finished with 225 yards passing and a touchdown in his first start of the season. Lewis rushed for 115 yards and a touchdown on just 14 attempts.
Otterbein said he was happy with the way his starting quarterback played.
“C.J. got us in a couple really nice audibles,” Otterbein said. “There were a couple of those big plays that we had on offense where he audibled to the play because they were grossly misaligned. You take your senior veteran fifth-year starting quarterback, those are the things he’s supposed to help you do.”
Otterbein doesn’t plan to make any big changes to his personnel going into Saturday’s game.
“It’s too early to tell,” he said. “What I told the staff is we’ve got to put our best players in positions to be successful, so whatever tweaks we’ve got to make to personnel in all phases, whatever tweaks we’ve got to make schematically to give them a better chance to succeed, those are the things that as you get your first game under your belt and you know what your personality is you have to address.”
The Chargers have focused their attention on their next game on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Frank “Muddy” Waters Stadium against the Lake Erie Storm, who lost their season opener 56-22 to Ashland.
“They’re a tricky team,” Karmie said. “They’re not typically seen as one of the best teams in the GLIAC but they’re a dangerous team because they have athletes and they run a lot of blitz schemes.”
The Chargers have been getting ready for Lake Erie’s aggressive blitzes. In Hillsdale’s game against Lake Erie last year, the Storm sent blitzes three out of four plays, according to Karmie.
Defensively, the Chargers have been preparing to deal with Lake Erie’s starting running back Anthony Bilal. Bilal rushed for 216 yards and three touchdowns in Lake Erie’s season opener.
“He’s a home run threat every time he touches the ball,” Otterbein said. “There will be times when he makes something out of nothing so that’s a challenge.”
Overall, the Chargers hope the lessons they’ve learned from their season-opening loss will help them to their first win on Saturday.
“We have a lot to learn from our first game,” Mifsud said. “It’s important for us as a team to not get too discouraged after a loss but rather learn from the mistakes and move forward.”
