Explosive plays give Toledo football a boost

Does Toledo have an offensive line problem? It’s too early to tell.

What the Rockets do possess is a weapon to overcome a shoddy O-line: explosive plays.

On Saturday, UT scored on touchdown passes of 73 and 40 yards, and Jacquez Stuart returned a kickoff 98 yards. Through two games, Toledo ranks in the top 30 national in plays of 40-plus yards and the Rockets are only one of 30 teams with a play of 70-plus yards.

“It’s feast or famine,” UT coach Jason Candle said Saturday after his team’s 38-23 win over Massachusetts. “You’re going to miss some. You’re going to hit some long plays, too. That’s kind of what you saw today.”

It was not an aesthetically pleasing afternoon for the Rockets, who had 102 total yards until late in the third quarter. They finished with 258 yards, Tucker Gleason only completed eight passes, and Toledo did not establish a ground game at all, rushing for 83 yards on 22 carries.

But they had a knack for rising to the moment. On third-and-1 in the first quarter, Gleason scrambled for UT’s longest run of the game, an 18-yard gain to keep the drive alive. UT started the scoring on the next play with a 40-yard pass and catch from Gleason to Jerjuan Newton.

Gleason had a 12-yard third-down scramble in the second quarter — UT’s second-longest run — that led to a field goal. Late in the first half, Stuart’s kickoff return broke a tie at 10. Gleason’s 73-yard touchdown strike to Junior Vandeross provided a spark in the third quarter and gave the Rockets a 24-16 lead. Connor Walendzak’s 12-yard run from the UMass 25-yard line got Toledo on the doorstep for the game-clinching touchdown.

“We knew it was out there on the table,” Vandeross said. “We just had to execute.”

The run game was virtually nonexistent. UMass didn’t have a sack and it only had one tackle for loss and one QB hurry, but the Minutemen clogged running lanes and left Stuart (four rushes, 14 yards), Walendzak (four rushes, 19 yards), and Willie Shaw III (eight rushes, 25 yards) with little room to navigate. If Gleason’s two long runs are taken away, Toledo had 53 yards on 20 carries.

A savvy defensive coordinator who thrives on chaos isn’t a great match for an offensive line making its second start together. But it doesn’t lessen Toledo’s inability to create space. In his postgame comments, Candle was noticeably unsettled about what took place.

“That’s about as stressful as it’s going to get with the pressures and all the different blitz patterns and all the different personnel groupings,” he said. “We figured we were going to have some plays that weren’t going to look really good, and we were hoping to get the ones that did.”

Not only are explosive plays Toledo’s path to neutralize any offensive deficiencies, the Rockets know exactly which players are matchup problems for opponents. A familiar tableau emerged the first two weeks: Newton, Stuart, Vandeross, and Anthony Torres scored touchdowns in both games.

“Those are your premier guys, and you’re trying to find ways to try to get them the football and put them in a position where they can be successful and they can get the end zone,” Candle said. “You want guys that can create explosive plays, and we’ve got to do a great job finding ways to get them the ball.”

Especially if the rest of the offense is stagnant.