Dantin throws 5 TD passes, Pasquale rumbles in Toledo's win over Akron

Mak­ing his first start since the sea­son opener at Ari­zona, Austin Dantin threw for five touch­downs

THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH
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Mak­ing his first start since the sea­son opener at Ari­zona, Austin Dantin threw for five touch­downs

Coach Matt Camp­bell has main­tained all sea­son that back up quar­ter­back Austin Dantin would help the Univer­sity of Toledo win a foot­ball game. As each week passed it was get­ting harder and harder to take his mes­sage se­ri­ously.

Well, Camp­bell was onto some­thing. Dantin, who has been bound to the side­line for all but a hand­ful of snaps in a se­nior sea­son that has tested his will, was bril­liant in his fi­nal reg­u­lar sea­son game, con­jur­ing mem­o­ries of the great mo­ments in a solid ca­reer that came full cir­cle in front of 14,589 fans at the Glass Bowl.

PHOTO GALLERY: Toledo vs. Akron

Mak­ing his first start since the sea­son opener at Ari­zona, Dantin threw for five touch­downs Tues­day in a 35-23 win against Akron that likely se­cured a third straight bowl game for the Rock­ets (9-3, 6-2 Mid-Amer­i­can Con­fer­ence).

Dantin, who got the nod on se­nior night af­ter Ter­rance Owens’ lin­ger­ing an­kle in­jury forced him into street clothes, sealed the win in the fourth quar­ter with short touch­down passes to Alex Zmo­lik and Justin Olack. Dantin, mak­ing his 24th ca­reer start, com­pleted 29 of 35 passes for a ca­reer-high 327 yards.

"Some­one asked me a cou­ple of weeks ago, ‘Coach, when’s he go­ing to play?" Camp­bell said. "Well, he played, and he played darn well, and I couldn’t be prouder of him."

A touch­ing mo­ment fol­lowed his three-yard TD pass to Olack, as Dantin walked off the field with 8 min­utes, 19 sec­onds re­main­ing and wrapped his arms around Camp­bell, the first-year coach who benched him af­ter Dantin strug­gled in week one at Ari­zona.

Camp­bell in­di­cated last week that Owens, who ripped the job from Dantin with a stel­lar per­for­mance against Wy­o­ming, might not be able to go.

"This was def­i­nitely a spe­cial night," said Dantin, who matched his ca­reer-high in touch­down passes. "This will be some­thing I re­mem­ber for­ever. Last game in the Glass Bowl and to go out like this was a per­fect end­ing to it."

Dantin recorded his first touch­down pass in more than a cal­en­dar year when he found Alonzo Rus­sell in the end zone for a 23-yard strike early in the sec­ond quar­ter. Dantin, who added two more TD passes in the half — one to Rus­sell and an­other to David Pasquale — had not thrown a touch­down pass since Nov. 1, 2011, when he tossed five of them in a loss to North­ern Il­li­nois.

The two-year starter from Tal­la­has­see, Fla., was 18 for 23 in the half, to­tal­ing 248 pass­ing yards and turn­ing an early 10-0 def­i­cit into a 21-17 lead at half­time.

It was al­most as if he and Pasquale, a se­nior who played in place of in­jured run­ning back starter David Fluel­len, de­vised a plan to have a lit­tle fun in their fi­nal reg­u­lar sea­son game. Pasquale, who had one catch en­ter­ing the night, was a wreck­ing ball in the first half, rum­bling 96 yards on five catches. He ex­tended a short route across the mid­dle into a 55-yard touch­down, sprint­ing di­ag­o­nally and win­ning a foot race to the py­lon against free safety Johnny Robin­son.

Toledo running back David Pasquale carried the ball 15 times for 94 yards and added another 110 yards on seven catches.

Pasquale car­ried the ball 15 times for 94 yards and added an­other 110 yards on seven catches.

"For him to have the night that he had I couldn’t be hap­pier for him," Dantin said of Pasquale.

Rus­sell, who caught just three passes in the pre­vi­ous two games, played one of his fin­est games in a pro­di­gious fresh­man sea­son. He blew past cor­ner­back Bryce Cheek on a go route late in the first half, and Dantin lofted him the ball for a 39-yard scor­ing con­nec­tion. Rus­sell needed 214 yards head­ing into the game to reach 1,000.

Dantin’s mem­o­ra­ble night did not come with­out tra­vails. His throw­ing arm was smashed in the third quar­ter, and his wob­bly pass fell into the arms of line­backer Kurt Man­gum end­ing a drive in which Toledo ad­vanced to Akron’s 23. Dantin, who was slow to get up, re­turned to be­gin the next drive.

That turn­over, Toledo’s only one of the game, fol­lowed a 17-play drive by Akron that yielded zero points. The Zips, who couldn’t con­vert on two chances from Toledo’s 2 be­fore be­ing pe­nal­ized for in­ten­tional ground­ing, lined up for a 33-yard field goal but switched out of the for­ma­tion, leav­ing punter Zach Paul to play quar­ter­back. Di­sas­ter en­sued for the Zips, as Trent Voss dropped Paul be­fore the play could un­fold.

Akron, which posted its third straight one-win sea­son, also shook things up at quar­ter­back. Se­nior Dal­ton Wil­liams, who leads the MAC with more than 300 pass­ing yards per game, was pulled af­ter two se­ries in fa­vor of fresh­man Kyle Pohl. The im­pli­ca­tion, it seemed, is coach Terry Bow­den wanted to get a glimpse into his fu­ture. Pohl gave rea­son for op­ti­mism, im­me­di­ately au­thor­ing a 14 play, 81-yard drive that ended in Jawon Chish­olm’s 4-yard TD run.

Pohl com­pleted 6 of 8 passes on the se­ries for 55 yards and got loose with his legs to con­vert on third-and-9.

Pohl, of Farm­ers­ville, Ohio near Day­ton, threw for three TDs, in­clud­ing one with 3:30 to go that cut the def­i­cit to 35-23.

Con­tact Ryan Au­tullo at rau­tullo@the­blade.com, 419-724-6160 or on Twit­ter @Au­tul­loBlade.