In its past two games, the Hillsdale College football team has outscored its opposition 34-6 in the fourth quarter. But in the first three quarters, the Chargers have been outscored 81-24.
On Saturday at the University of Findlay, Hillsdale fell behind 40-0 in the third quarter but finished strong to make the final score a more-respectable 46-28. With the second-ranked team in the nation coming to town this weekend, the Chargers know they need to play with their fourth-quarter intensity from the start.
“We’ve got to find a way to get out of that deficit in the first half to be able to start faster,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “We played two very physical athletic teams on the road, and they’re very athletic. Getting to that game tempo has got to happen a lot faster for us to be productive and have a better first half.”
In each of their three wins this season, the Chargers established their running game while shutting down the opposition’s running game. They couldn’t manage either on Saturday.
The Oilers gained 236 of their 499 total yards on the ground. The Chargers mustered just 74 rushing yards on 28 carries.
“They were pretty stout up front—they had a couple 300-pounders on the defensive line. We just didn’t generate anything with the run game at all,” Otterbein said.
The Chargers like to mix run and pass plays evenly, but couldn’t on Saturday because of their massive deficit. Hillsdale ran 38 pass plays to 28 run plays.
“We’ve got to mix the run and the pass, and we didn’t do a good job there,” Otterbein said. “We have to be something that really we don’t like to be in terms of our run-pass ratio when we’re trying to make up the score.”
Sophomore quarterback Chance Stewart completed 26 of his 38 passes for 249 yards and a touchdown. Sophomore tailback Joe Reverman carried the ball 10 times for 23 yards.
“I didn’t run the ball as well as I would’ve liked,” Reverman said. “They had a really good defensive line so that was tough.”
Otterbein said his players were “a little tight” at the beginning of the game, which was a factor in their slow start.
“You’ve got to have the ability to just cut loose and just go play with a reckless abandon,” Otterbein said. “Sometimes they want to be so perfect that they don’t just pin their ears back and go play.”
Struggling on offense and defense in the first half, the Chargers couldn’t come up with a big play to ignite themselves. Hillsdale had a chance on the opening drive of the game to seize the momentum, but the Oilers converted a fourth-and-5 play and scored a touchdown three plays later.
“If we get off the field there, we gain some confidence and play more aggressively,” Otterbein said. “Those kind of scenarios where there’s times to really capture the momentum of the game, we haven’t done it.”
In their past two games, the Chargers have given up 1,013 yards and 87 points. Otterbein said the Chargers need to get off blocks and make tackles better, and keep plays in front of them.
“The physical mismatches have been tough on us. People have been able to pick on us a little bit in the passing game because they isolate our corners because we’re trying to stop the run,” Otterbein said. “It’s hard to cover the skill guys we’ve got in this league.”
Defensively, the Chargers like to make their opponents beat them through the air. But it only works if the Chargers stop them on the ground.
“We’ve given up way too many rushing yards and if we can limit rushing yards and make teams beat us in the air we’ll be much better off,” junior linebacker Jay Rose said. “That’s what we were doing earlier in the year, so we need to get back to that.”
While the Chargers’ performance has been subpar over their past two games, Otterbein is not concerned with their effort.
“It’s not like we’re going out there and playing down to a lesser opponent’s level,” Otterbein said. “We’ve been playing good teams and just come up short a couple times on the road.”
The Chargers will be back home this weekend—but they’ll take on their toughest opponent of the season. Hillsdale will host the No. 2 Grand Valley Lakers at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at Frank “Muddy” Waters Stadium.
“These guys have talent and they’re well-coached,” Otterbein said. “You look at them and you go, ‘OK, where’s the weakness?’ And it’s hard to find.”
The Chargers are confident they can pull off the upset if they prepare well and play well on Saturday.
“You don’t have to do extraordinary things to be successful but you have to do the ordinary things at an extraordinary level,” Otterbein said. “So we’ve got to be really fundamentally sound. We’ve got to be able to block and tackle really well and do those things and play with a fervor and an emotion.”
The players are excited for the chance to play a top-ranked team.
“You don’t get chances like this all the time, and for us to be able to play the No. 2 team in the nation at our place is exciting,” Reverman said. “We’re just hoping to have a great week of preparation for it.”