Joe Harasymiak did not dress up his squad’s 24-0 loss at Toledo Wednesday night.
“They outphysicaled us and that’s what set the tone in the first half and certainly just couldn’t get anything going,” Harasymiak said after the loss at the Glass Bowl. “That’s the best team we’ve played all year live and in person.”
“Coach (Mike Jacobs) does a great job and they were just a really, really good football team. And when you don’t play well, the game gets out of hand quickly.”
Perhaps the bigger story was who UMass lost along the way. Quarterback Pop Watson left in the first quarter and did not return. Harasymiak had no update on Watson, who appeared to reinjure an ankle that has hampered him and forced him to miss two full games over the past six weeks.
“I won’t know more on that until probably we get back and get him into our own facility and take a look,” he said.
Watson was not alone. Receiver T.Y. Harding exited in the first quarter as well, and the count kept growing from there.
“We had 12, I guess 11 or 12 starters, depending on how you look at it, did not finish the game,” Harasymiak said. “I’ve personally never been involved in a game like that where that many starters go out and don’t return.”
Toledo defensive end Andrew Zock did exactly what Harasymiak warned he was capable of doing.
“They’re really good up front, especially #0,” he said. “I think he had two sacks again tonight.
“We didn’t really chip well from doing what we wanted to do with him and kind of slow him down.”
Reserve quarterback Logan Inagawa replaced Watson and was under heavy pressure all night.
“Logan hung in there and tried to fight it, but he was getting hit a lot and we got to protect better,” Harasymiak said. “We ultimately got to run the ball better to put us in some more third downs that are manageable.”
Harasymiak was happier with the response after halftime, though not with how the night started.
“I was very upset with them overall,” he said of his mood in the locker room at halftime. “I just felt like we were a little shook.”
He credited the environment too.
“It’s the best away MAC spot I’ve played at so far,” he said.
While the defense didn’t necessarily keep the team in the game the way they have done so many times this year, in hindsight that was just because the game got away so fast and the offense never showed any signs of being a threat. But the defense did manage to hold one of the MAC’s most explosive offenses to 17 points when you take out the pick-six.
The defense shut Toledo out after halftime and held the Rockets where they were.
“We kind of just did our job and did our 9.09 and settled in and ultimately took away the explosive plays that hurt us in the first half.”
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