RedHawks bag first win for one happy Halloween

Spooky things happen on Halloween. The holiday’s latest trick rendered a team of Rockets powerless and treated coach Mike Haywood to his first career victory as head of the Miami University football team.

On its last possession of the game, seven points, eight minutes and 99 yards separated the University of Toledo from overtime. After trailing by 17 at halftime, the Rockets needed one last blast to complete their comeback.

Behind a punishing ground game and an aggressive air attack, Toledo deliberately drove down the field. After failing to convert a third down attempt all afternoon, the Rockets cashed in on three to keep the ball in their possession and moving closer to the Miami end zone. And with every snap, time continued to trickle off the clock.

With 67 seconds left in the game, Toledo’s first-year head coach Tim Beckman called a timeout. The tying touchdown play was in the works and the Miami faithful few knew it. When tight end Danny Noble caught the ball and plodded toward the pylon, it only confirmed what had already been deemed a certainty.

As the line judge signaled the score, Haywood began discussing the overtime game plan with offensive coordinator Peter Vaas. The booth review of the play seemed to be mere formality. Not even Anthony Kokal, who made the goal-line tackle, held much hope. Noble either scored or was pushed out at the one-yard line, right? Wrong.

Upon review, the referee discovered that before Noble entered the end zone Kokal forced him to fumble the football, which hit the pylon as it fell to the ground. By rule, this resulted in a touchback and turned possession over to Miami on the 20-yard line.

“Touchback sounded a lot like touchdown so I wasn’t sure at first,” Kokal said. “A couple guys started coming up and hugging me and then I realized he actually did say touchback.”

To expire the remaining minute of play and seal its first victory of the season, Miami needed just three rushes and a kneel down. The win snapped a school-record 13-game losing streak dating back to Oct. 18, 2008.

Freshman Wes Williams fired the Hawks up early with his pick-6 to put MU up seven.

“This is huge,” kicker Trevor Cook said. “It’s been spiraling and I feel like so many times we’ve been so close. Last week we were so close, against Northwestern we were so close. Kent State too. Now we have the confidence that we needed to drive forward with the new coaching staff.”

Yager Stadium quickly became a house of horrors for Toledo when freshman linebacker Wes Williams returned his first career interception for a touchdown just four minutes into the game. The Rockets tied the contest to end the first quarter but then succeeded 17 points to Miami in the second frame. Cook ended the half with a 55-yard field goal, the longest three-pointer in MU history.

The offensive outburst hinged on the arm of redshirt freshman quarterback Zac Dysert, who threw for 344 yards, one touchdown and zero interceptions. Haywood has preached smash-mouth football all season but changed his game plan a mere 17 and a half hours before Saturday’s game. At 10 o’clock Friday night he decided to switch to a pass-first offense and deemphasize a ground game that has proved futile for most of the season. As a result of the change he became aware of Saturday morning, Dysert threw 51 passes against the Rockets.

“Coach Vass came in (to the morning pre-game meeting) and he had 17-0 written on the board,” Dysert said. ”We all had no idea what it was. He said ‘game plan has changed fellas. We’re going to go into this game thinking we are down 17.’”

An unforeseen consequence of the change was vast improvement from the running backs with a suddenly lighter load. Thomas Merriweather, Miami’s only ball carrier other than a scrambling Dysert, averaged 5.5 yards on eight total carries. He still finished with 34 fewer rushing yards than his signal caller, who carried the ball 13 times for 78 yards and two touchdowns.

After holding a potent Rocket offense to just seven points in the first half, the Miami defense allowed Toledo to score 17 points of its own in the third quarter. The Rockets torched the RedHawks for 397 total yards of offense in the second half including 138 yards on the ground.

“The message at half time was that we need to play this game as if it’s a 30-minute game and it’s zero to zero,” Haywood said. “We didn’t play as well as I would have liked coming back out after half time but we played well enough to win.”

Miami overcame two of its vices during Saturday’s win. The RedHawks lead the MAC with 27 turnovers and owns a league worst -18 turnover margin but only lost the ball once against Toledo. Miami’s grounded rushing attack also took off to produce 92 yards and two touchdowns.

“I talked to (the team) in the locker room after the game about stopping the spiral,” Haywood said. “It’s like life. Sometimes things are going bad for you in life and it’s like a spiral. You have to find a way to stop it. This is a life lesson. They found a way to stop it. So now it’s time for us to propel off of that and move forward and start playing consistent football.”

Three games remain on Miami’s 2009 schedule. The RedHawks play Temple University on the road before finishing the season with two televised weeknight home games.

“(Brayden) Coombs came up to me after the game and said ‘coach, congratulations on your first win but we’ve got to win the next three to send this out the right way,’” Haywood said.

For a team that now stands 1-8 on the season, that would be quite the trick and treat.