The University of Toledo football team came out running in the Battle of I-75 on Wednesday night and didn’t stop on the way to a 66-37 victory over Bowling Green, its eighth straight in the rivalry.
Toledo rushed 53 times on the night for 389 yards. Senior Terry Swanson carried 23 times for 192 yards and sophomore Art Thompkins rushed nine times for 114 yards and an 88-yard TD. Redshirt freshman Shakif Seymour added 67 yards and five rushing TDs.
Swanson established the run game on the first offensive drive of the game for UT with 52 yards on five carries. Seymour, then finished the drive with a 3-yard TD run.
“We knew it was going to be a running football game, but those guys up front set the tone from the first play and that’s what we went with,” Swanson said. “Hats off to the offensive line, those guys were able to open those holes up and I was able to hit them.”
Swanson was injured in last week’s loss at Ohio and worked hard during the week to be able to play on Wednesday night against Bowling Green.
“I have to give my hats off to Adam, my trainer,” Swanson said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to go, but he helped me prepare like I was going to play and I ended up playing. I wanted that bad. It’s something that was a goal of this senior class was to get a win.”
Without Swanson, Toledo struggled to get anything going in the run game last week at Ohio, rushing for just 53 yards.
“That’s the goal is always to establish the line of scrimmage,” UT coach Jason Candle said. “I think in the Ohio game in the first half it was kind of back and forth. Then it got a little one-sided in the score and I didn’t do a good enough job of staying and keeping us balanced running the football and being who we were. I got a little one dimensional in the third and fourth quarter of that game. Tonight we were really solid with our front five guys [on the offensive line]. I thought tonight they were really solid and played as a unit the entire night.”
Amidst all the running, UT quarterback Logan Woodside had an efficient night, going 13-of-18 passing for 232 yards and two touchdowns. Candle gave Woodside credit for sticking with what was working most of the night, which was the run game.
“Credit our quarterback for staying within himself,” Candle said. “A senior quarterback that has as many accolades and accomplishments as he has had in his career might be moaning on the sidelines and saying, ‘Throw the ball. Throw the ball’. Never. He got us into the right play and kept doing what he was asked to do. I’m really proud of him.”
Senior Brad Smith got into the mix with his first career touchdown on a four-yard run late in the fourth quarter.
Seymour, getting his first taste of the rivalry, said he wanted to help his team in any way he could, especially for seniors like Swanson.
“I knew what was at stake and I wanted to go out there and play for our seniors,” Seymour said. “I knew it was rivalry week and I knew how bad our seniors wanted it, so I just played for the seniors.”
Right from the beginning of the game, Seymour was relied upon heavily to finish off drives in the red zone, and his five-touchdown performance tied a single-game school record.
“I think the offensive line did a good job driving off the line and creating holes for the running backs to see,” Seymour said. “I think our O-Line set the tone early.”
Contact Brian Buckey at bbuckey@theblade.com, 419-724-6110, or on Twitter @BrianBuckey.
First Published November 16, 2017, 6:15 a.m.
