WASHINGTON—Air Force coach Troy Calhoun wasn’t about to play it safe. He not only went for the win instead of overtime, he tried to run the option with his kicking team to get there.
It didn’t work. Holder David Baska got bottled up. The ball squirted toward kicker Parker Herrington, who chased it until it went out of bounds in the end zone. The Falcons lost by a point, 42-41, to Toledo in Wednesday’s Military Bowl.
One tough loss. No regrets.
“I thought we had an excellent chance to seal and win the game right there. It didn’t work out,” Calhoun said. “We didn’t convert it, so you better be able to live with it. We’re a group that over the last six years, we’re going to go for it on fourth down if we think there are chances we can take. When we have a pretty darn good opportunity to convert one, we’re going to do it. That’s the way we’re going to play.”
Air Force had already scored three fourth-down touchdowns, including the fourth-and-3, 33-yard scoring pass to Zack Kauth that pulled the Falcons within a point with 52 seconds to play.
While it would have been tempting to leave the offense on the field for the 2-point try, Calhoun said he had seen something on video that he thought he could exploit. It appeared that Baska tried to pitch the ball to Herrington, but Calhoun said the ball just popped out.
“It wasn’t a pitch. He wasn’t trying to pitch,” Calhoun said. “He was carrying it, and that’s when it came out.”
In other words, Toledo was ready.
“We talked about it, first and foremost, because they fake some extra points and fake some field goals,” Toledo coach Matt Campbell said. “Ironically, we were in the same situation last year in our bowl game. I give credit to our staff. We got ourselves into a defensive call. We were not in a ‘block’ look.”
The win marked a successful debut for Campbell, the youngest coach in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The 32-year-old coach, who has been the Rockets’ offensive coordinator for three years, was promoted to the head job after Tim Beckman left earlier this month for Illinois.
Bernard Reedy’s third touchdown of the game—a 33-yard catch, spin and run on a pass from Terrance Owens—gave Toledo a 42-35 lead with 5:01 remaining and put the Rockets (9-4) over the 40-point mark for a sixth straight game.
Reedy finished with a career-high 126 yards receiving on four catches and was named the game’s MVP.
The game matched two of the top 25 scoring teams in the country, and they wasted little time living up to their reputations. It was Mid-American Conference member Toledo’s spread offense against Mountain West Air Force’s triple option, and the idea of a huddle seemed a quaint, antiquated concept.
Back and forth they went. A kickoff return for 87 yards. A pitch around the left end for 60. Touchdown passes for 49 and 37 yards. A pair of botched onside kicks.
And that was just the first half.
Toledo’s Adonis Thomas finished with 108 yards on 22 carries. Paul Hornung Award finalist Eric Page caught 13 passes for 59 yards, but his biggest play was an 87-yard kickoff return in the first half.
Owens, getting most of the work at quarterback, completed 19 of 24 passes for 210 yards and three touchdowns. Owens got the nod over Austin Dantin, who started the first 10 games of the season before sitting out the last two with a concussion.
Tim Jefferson, the first quarterback in service academy history to lead his team to four consecutive bowl games, completed 13 of 22 passes for 159 yards with two touchdowns and one interception for Air Force (7-6). Jonathan Warzeka had a career-best 60-yard run to set up one touchdown, and his 37-yard reception on fourth-and-3 tied the game 28-all heading into halftime.
There was even room for a defensive score: Toledo safety Jermaine Robinson’s 37-yard interception runback after he corralled a tipped pass deep in the secondary.
But it all came down to a gutsy decision on a 2-point conversion—run while the offense stood and watched.
“Sure I would have liked to go to overtime, but I’m the type of person who doesn’t really like the overtime period,” Jefferson said. “If we would have hit that 2-point conversion, I would have been just as happy.”
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