SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 That was one way to welcome a new member to the Mid-American Conference.<\/p>\n
Ohio headed West on Saturday night for its first-ever matchup with Sacramento State, which joined the MAC this offseason after making the jump to the FBS level.<\/p>\n
The Bobcats (5-2, 3-0 MAC) gave their new conference rival a warm welcome, dominating the Hornets (1-6, 0-4 MAC) from the jump in their own stadium for a 48-7 win. The 41-point margin of victory was Ohio\u2019s largest since November of 2024.<\/p>\n
Now winners of four straight, Ohio once again surged in the first half to a dominant advantage that all but ended the game by halftime. A week after leading Central Michigan 31-0 at the break, Ohio scored 27 first-half points while blanking the Hornets.<\/p>\n
Nick Poulos finished 11-of-14 for 118 yards and one touchdown, adding 48 rushing yards. Levi Davis came in late in the second half, completed 3-of-4 passes for 32 yards and rushed for a 14-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
Duncan Brune recorded 55 yards and two rushing scores, while Irving Brown led the Bobcats with a team-high 87 yards and scored his first career rushing touchdown. Victor Rosa also crossed the goal line, adding 32 yards.<\/p>\n
After catching his first touchdown as a Bobcat last weekend, Preston Bowman added another on a 67-yard scoring grab in the second half. He finished with a team-high 94 yards on three catches. Riley Neer hauled in five passes for 44 yards, all in the first half.<\/p>\n
Ohio wasted no time taking the lead, forcing a quick punt on Sacramento State\u2019s opening drive before a methodical, 11-play, 82-yard drive that concluded with a three-yard run by Brune for his first score.<\/p>\n
The Bobcats followed that up with a pair of interceptions and touchdowns in the second quarter, successfully scoring on all five of their first-half possessions.<\/p>\n
Will Hryszko connected on field goals from 37 and 50 yards, the latter of which was a career-high, while Brune and Rosa each added rushing scores from 14 and 16 yards out.<\/p>\n
That gave the Bobcats 27 first-half points, and the defense matched it with a dominant effort, allowing just 74 yards to the Hornets in the opening half.<\/p>\n
Barry Dillon snagged an interception in the second quarter that set up one of Hryszko\u2019s field goals, while the defensive front completely took away any running room.<\/p>\n
Darren James-Hamilton finished with a team-high six stops, while freshman linebacker Alex Brown notched a career-high five tackles. Michael Molnar, Isaiah Street and Tyler Gillison each recorded a sack and a tackle for loss.<\/p>\n
The Bobcats put the nail in the coffin right out of the locker room, with Bowman\u2019s acrobatic 67-yard touchdown making it 34-0 and giving several Ohio starters the rest of the night off.<\/p>\n
Davis made it 41-0 with his 14-yard rushing scamper just before the end of the third, before the Hornets finally got on the board in the fourth on a 38-yard catch-and-run by Kenyon Shabazz.<\/p>\n
Brown made sure to get involved in the scoring on the team\u2019s final drive, flashing on a 50-yard rush before punching in his first career touchdown one play later.<\/p>\n
That made it 48-7, capping off Ohio\u2019s best performance this season as the team continues to trend upwards after a challenging non-conference slate.<\/p>\n
The Bobcats return home for senior day next Saturday, October 24, when they\u2019ll play Eastern Michigan at Peden Stadium.<\/p>\n
In addition to the chance to start 4-0 in conference play, Ohio will also have the opportunity to win their 17th game in a row at home. With Ohio State\u2019s win at Indiana on Saturday, the Bobcats\u2019 home win streak became the longest in the FBS at 16 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 That was one way to welcome a new member to the Mid-American Conference. Ohio headed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[18875,44693,44692,44687,44689,84183,9522,44688,19804,19806,19805,9437,194040,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-500830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-american-football","tag-american-football-bowls","tag-american-football-playoffs","tag-college-football-conference-seasons","tag-gridiron-football","tag-mid-american-conference","tag-national-football-league","tag-ncaa-division-i-fbs-football-teams","tag-nfl-seasons","tag-nfl-teams","tag-nfl-teams-seasons","tag-ohio","tag-ohio-bobcats-football","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}