Toledo Blade Maureen Fulton Blog

Toledo men's basketball plays its first game tonight at Florida, and a few of its opponents have already tipped off.
Miami is 1-1, with a win over Weber State and a 5-point loss to No. 4 UCLA. I stayed up and watched the whole game and was very impressed by the RedHawks, who I thought would miss Tim Pollitz more than they did. Even with Kenny Hayes having an off night, Michael Bramos was very tough for UCLA to guard, so I'm assuming it'll be that much harder for MAC players. Their freshman post Julian Mavunga (6-foot-8, 255 pounds) is going to be a lot to deal with come MAC season. And they had a lot of role players play exactly how they should without trying to do too much. U Mass, which comes to Toledo for the Savage Arena opening, lost to Southern Illinois and its point guard Chris Lowe had 10 turnovers. Houston, which comes to town Dec. 20, lost to Georgia Southern 65-63. A bunch of MAC schools play tonight as well. Tonight, Florida coach Billy Donovan is looking for leadership and defense from his team, which has a lot of youth for the second year in a row.

Toledo coach Tom Amstutz said on Monday that sophomore cornerback Desmond Marrow needs surgery on his knee and will miss the rest of the season. Marrow injured his knee on the first play of the game against Northern Illinois when he was on the kickoff coverage team.
Freshman Kenny Veal is still No. 1 on the depth chart to replace Marrow even after he had a tough day defending Bryan Anderson, who had two receiving touchdowns for Central Michigan. Junior Joe Bates, who started earlier in the season, isn't even on the depth chart anymore although he still plays on special teams. Freshman Andreas Ashwood also saw a lot of playing time the last two games and that looks to continue. With no game until next Wednesday at Akron, the team is going to take three days off practice and begin its regular schedule on Thursday. Out at men's basketball practice on Monday, it seems coach Gene Cross is pretty pleased with where his freshman posts are at right now in learning the offense and generally picking up the rigors of college basketball. Ian Salter and Terrance Tubbs could be your opening-night frontcourt starters. Zac Taylor from Clay High School recently had surgery to clean out his knee and won't be back for another month. He hadn't practiced yet this month with soreness in his knees. Freshman Stephen Albrecht will also miss 4-6 weeks with a back injury.

The DeKalb Daily Chronicle's John Sahly, a fellow University of Missouri grad, asked me to write something for his blog this week on the Northern Illinois-Toledo game. You can find that here.
John sent a piece to me as well. Here's his take on Saturday's matchup: “At the start of the season, Saturday's Northern Illinois-Toledo game looked like it would be a typical Huskies-Rockets matchup. The Huskies would play hard, Toledo would make a few more plays and the Rockets would pull out the victory. Then the NIU defense turned things around. And Toledo went to Michigan and won. And I don't know what to make of this game. Let's start with the Northern Illinois defense. In the past four games, the Huskies have surrendered a total of 29 points. They gave up 31 in the season-opener at Minnesota. The Huskies started to turn things around on defense against Indiana State, after the coaches scaled back on the playbook and tried to keep things simple. Defensive end Larry English (3.5 sacks) has returned to form since a thumb injury required him to play with a cast. The player who has really come on as of late is the defensive end Brandon Bice, who has three sacks and three pass breakups. The Huskies will be without their best cornerback in Bradley Pruitt because of an ankle injury and linebacker is an issue of concern with a few injured players, so this game could be a big challenge on defense for NIU. On offense, Northern Illinois will start Chandler Harnish at quarterback. Harnish is trying to knock the rust off after missing all or part of four games with a right mid-foot sprain. Look for freshman running back Me'co Brown — 123 rushing yards last week against Miami (Ohio) — to again get the majority of the carries. As for last year's NIU-Toledo game, the one where the Rockets put up 70 on the Huskies, NIU hasn't forgotten about it. The scoreboard at Tuesday's practice at Huskie Stadium read 'Rockets 70, Huskies 21.'”

Senior Tyrone Kent was named to the Mid-American Conference's preseason men's basketball squad. Kent led the league in scoring last year at 16.9 points per game. He was also fifth in the league with 2.2 3-pointers per game and 1.77 steals per game.
Here's the rest of the team. I voted for every player listed except I picked Chris Knight instead of Nate Miller at Bowling Green. The West Division representatives are Anthony Newell of Ball State, Carlos Medlock of Eastern Michigan, Darion Anderson of Northern Illinois, Tyrone Kent of Toledo and David Kool of Western Michigan. The East Division squad is comprised of Akron’s Nate Linhart, Nate Miller of Bowling Green, Al Fisher of Kent State, Michael Bramos of Miami and Ohio’s Jerome Tillman. UT opens up four weeks from Friday at Florida on Nov. 14.

The team Toledo will face on Saturday in DeKalb has several differences from the squad the Rockets put up 800-plus yards of offense on last year in the Glass Bowl.
NIU is 3-3 and 2-1 in MAC play. That's one more win than last year, when NIU had just two. The Huskies have been relying on their defense while dealing with multiple quarterback injuries. NIU has played three quarterbacks and all three have been injured at some point. In Saturday's win over Miami, Chandler Harnish replaced DeMarcus Grady when Grady injured his ankle. Harnish had missed a month with an ankle injury himself and had practiced just twice since removing a boot. Dan Nicholson has also played QB but is out with a shoulder injury. The sole heralded player for the Huskies entering the season was defensive end Larry English, and he is having another great season. English has 3.5 sacks and six tackles for loss. NIU has 10 sacks as a team. NIU leads the MAC in scoring defense (14.8 points per game) and rushing defense (113.2 yards per game). The defense has had just nine touchdowns scored on them all year. The last four games NIU opponents have scored 13 points or less. Especially given Toledo's offensive problems, the Huskies will likely come into the game with a lot of confidence it can stop the Rockets' attack. Freshman running back Me'co Brown is coming off a 123-yard performance against Miami. Brown also returns kicks. Last year's starter, Justin Anderson, is relegated to backup duty but has been taking some direct snaps. The offense has converted 44 percent on third downs. NIU has had by far the most number of touchbacks in the MAC this year with 11. As a result it is second in the league in kickoff coverage. Now, all of NIU's wins have come over really bad teams. They lost to what seems to be a pretty bad team in Tennessee, albeit in front of 99,000. But their other two losses were extremely close against good teams in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Both were decided on plays in the last minute. The NIU players who traveled to Toledo last year and got embarrassed (70-21 final) will want revenge. Toledo has a big challenge ahead of them.

It was announced Monday that the Oct. 11 University of Toledo and Michigan football game will start at noon and be televised on the Big Ten Network.
The teams are playing each other for the first time. UT receives a $500,000 check for traveling to Ann Arbor for the game.

The Dolphins cut former Toledo running back Jalen Parmele this week. Miami had more pressing needs at other positions than running back, where they have a lot of depth right now. It's possible Parmele could be re-signed to the Dolphins' practice squad if he clears waivers. It's a tough blow to Parmele in his rookie year, but I'm guessing he'll have other chances to make it in the league.

UT coach Tom Amstutz said this afternoon he expects running back DaJuane Collins to play against Florida International. He said he didn't know how long center Buster Garrett would be out, but that his leg injury was not severe. Garrett is not listed on the depth chart released today, it's Nate Cole at starting center.
Kicker Alex Steigerwald was named the MAC special teams player of the week today for the second time this year. By the way, forgive me for coming to this party late, but Ball State has just two games left in my opinion that could prevent the Cardinals from going undefeated. One is next week at Toledo. The other is at Central Michigan in November. Sure, a letdown elsewhere is possible as well, but those are the toughest games left with their easy schedule. Next week at the Glass Bowl is going to have huge implications.

This article in the Gainesville Sun confirms the University of Toledo men's basketball team will play at Florida to open the season and the Gene Cross tenure on Nov. 14. It also says the game will be on ESPN U. That's a rare boon for the Rockets hoops squad.

The University of Toledo announced that ESPN U will televise UT's home opener against Fresno State on Sept. 20. Game time has been moved to 8:15 p.m.
That's the third game that UT will have on national TV along with the Akron and Bowling Green games. This could change again with the Michigan game time not being announced yet. Also, kicker Alex Steigerwald was named the MAC West special teams player of the week for his 3-for-3 field goals at Arizona on Saturday.

TUCSON -- The rumors about the University of Toledo suspending a player ended up being partly, but not fully, true. UT has suspended offensive lineman Jared Dewalt for two games for a violation of team rules.
The team isn't saying much but did say that Buster Garrett will play despite missing practice on Wednesday. Nate Cole will likely start at center with Garrett coming in. We'll see if defensive tackle Skylaar Constant starts. In a depth chart dated Sept. 3 he is not on it, but on one dated Sept. 5 he is first-team. Nick Moore is behind Kenny Stafford at a receiver position on the most recent depth chart, but was just on the field at Arizona Stadium taking punts. I will be back later with more updates. Halftime, 24-6 Arizona The Rockets' defense started out great with a sack by Sean Williamson. It's been downhill ever since. The run defense has struggled, allowing 95 yards on the ground by Nic Grigsby. Grigsby first was going outside and now has his way wherever he wants to go. Also, all the Arizona receivers are not being contested on the catch. On offense, the Rockets are going to break Stephen Williams in half if they keep using him exclusively. He has made some great plays but on the last one got belted pretty hard. He's had a few drops, but most were the cause of some poor passes. The goal line play was thrown behind him and Aaron Opelt whipped it a little too hard. Opelt also likely could have run it in. Nick Moore is only occasionally being used as a decoy because he's banged up, so that's part of the problem. Kenny Stafford hasn't gotten any looks. I heard all about Robin Bailey's good camp so I'd expect them to try him in the second half. One positive, Morgan Williams has been very impressive upon first glance. He's got the jukes and shows a playmaking ability. He already shows a talent for kick returning. 14 true freshmen played in the first half.

I wanted to pass on this release for those of you needing to pick of tickets to University of Toledo sporting events.
The University of Toledo athletic ticket office will move back to its usual location in Savage Hall on Thursday, Sept. 4. The Ticket Office will be open at 10 a.m. on that day. Normal ticket office hours of 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. will resume on Friday, Sept. 5. The Ticket Office had been temporarily located in the Glass Bowl press tower for the past four months due to construction at Savage Hall.

Wednesday afternoon UT will step onto its new FieldTurf and practice in the Glass Bowl for the first time. The Rockets have two practices left before they leave for Arizona on Friday. Thursday's practice will be under the lights and might not conclude until 11 p.m.
Also, it appears the Rockets women's basketball program is getting a point guard from Israel. Check out this link for more info. Her jersey in the second picture is interesting, you don't see that in the U.S. anymore.

Arizona coach Mike Stoops is well aware of Toledo receivers Stephen Williams and Nick Moore. Reading between the lines while listening to his press conference on Monday, he thinks Williams and Moore are the Rockets' best players and intends on stopping them.
Here's some of what he said about Toledo in his press conference: “The MAC always plays really well. It's a good football conference. It's a lot like the Mountain West. They're undervalued when you look at the totality of what they do. Maybe they don't perform as well as you would like against the top one or two teams, but everybody else when you look at the MAC schools, I believe Minnesota had to score in the final minute to beat Northern Illinois at home. Bowling Green beat a Pitt team that was a top-25 caliber team. There's enough out there to understand that Toledo will be a much improved football team than what we saw last night. They present a very good quarterback and two excellent receivers. Their coach has won consistently.” “These are probably the best receivers, or as good, these two guys could play in our league any day of the week. Our whole secondary will be challenged to a much stronger degree this week.” “They've got a really good offensive system. They know how to manipulate some things to get those guys the football. They're big, they have good hands and they're fast. We saw a duo like that last year and we didn't fare very well. We're going to make sure we're very conscious of these two individuals and the quarterback. And they have a good tight end too. They know what they're doing offensively that's probably the strength of their team is their offense.”

The first thing I noticed was that WR Nick Moore, CB Desmond Marrow and FS Tyrrell Herbert were participating in practice on Tuesday, and that was on a full pads day. These three expected starters haven't been involved in many drills this camp because of injuries and it's a good sign for UT that they're back with time to spare before the first game. Marrow made a nice pass breakup on one play. He and Joe Bates were the first-team corners.
The team is still practicing on Carter Field. Coach Tom Amstutz said he doesn't have a date on when the FieldTurf will be finished at the Glass Bowl but hopes his team will be able to practice on it next week. He said he cooked a steak dinner for the turf workers on his balcony yesterday, “so they didn't have to take a lunch break,” he joked. Arizona has a grass field but UT's week 2 opponent, Eastern Michigan, has FieldTurf, and then obviously the home opener on Sept. 20 against Fresno State. When the quarterbacks and receivers were working on fade routes, new receiver Tyler Roby made a tough catch on a ball that he had to wrestle away. Amstutz said Roby (6-foot-2) played wide receiver in high school and defensive back in junior college. The Rockets recruited him as a DB but he should stay at WR for the foreseeable future.

At least one national writer thinks UT's first opponent, Arizona, will play in a bowl game for the first time in 10 years.
Bruce Feldman from ESPN.com said on his blog Monday, "I'm on the Arizona bandwagon this year. ("On it" means I think the Wildcats will go bowling and at some point this season crack the top 20, not win their conference.) As I've said a few times, I think the Cats have outstanding receivers and I expect [quarterback] Willie Tuitama to make big strides in Year 2 of Sonny Dykes' offense. That comfort level, his improved conditioning and Tuitama's maturation process, especially his understanding of becoming a better leader, will be key." Here's the link, but his blog is ESPN Insider only. Here's a (free) link to a Arizona Daily Star story on Tuitama, the Wildcats' senior QB. Feldman puts Tuitama in the upper echelon of Pac-10 QBs. Tuitama and the team might be faced with big loss for him and the team, though, as tight end Rob Gronkowski has strep throat and is awaiting the results of a mono test. Something to follow if you're bored this week while every other team has a game ... Arizona will have eight new starters on defense, which is one advantage UT sees in having fresh game tape to watch of them. The Rockets will be able to learn more about their personnel. Of course, a real game playing together will be very beneficial for all of UA's new starters.

Based on observations at several practices this week, I think the University of Toledo football team has pretty much decided who its starters will be, with a few exceptions. I'll go through position by position.
Offense Offensive line: VanDerMeulen, DeWalt, Garrett, Kowalski, Gewont. Tight end: John Allen. Tom Burzine and Danny Noble seeing a lot of time too. Matt Fought is currently injured. Wide receivers: The first team this week has been Robin Bailey, Stephen Williams and Adonis Thomas. Nick Moore has not been practicing much but coach Amstutz said he will be ready to go by the opener. Kenny Stafford also gets some time with the 1's. Quarterbacks: Opelt, with Lenehan as backup Running back: Collins, with Morgan Williams as backup Defense Defensive line: Alexandre, Constant, Williamson, Summers. Everyone will get time and other key players will be Forestal, Westbrook, Hill and Martin. Linebackers: Archie Donald has one spot sewn up. Daris Quinn and Beau Brudzinski have rotated in the other spot, both figure to play. Today it was Quinn with the first team. Safeties: Church, Richmond for sure. Herbert has been in and out with true frosh Mark Singer playing in his spot. Cornerbacks: This is the one position on the team other than perhaps punter that is still up for grabs by several different players. Any two of Walter Atkins, Joe Bates, Greg Harris and Andreas Ashwood could start against Arizona. Desmond Marrow has been out this week but perhaps he'll be ready to go by gametime. Myshan Veasley-Pettis also figures to get some playing time but likely not as a starter. More on the cornerbacks in Sunday's Blade.

The non-conference schedule for the University of Toledo men's basketball team should come out in the next week or so. Here's a preview: I'm told as of right now, the first two games are at the University of Florida, and at Xavier.
That's pretty brutal. Florida didn't make the NCAA tournament last year, but no one has forgotten the Gators' back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007. Xavier was an Elite Eight team last season. Former coach Stan Joplin set up the Xavier game, but the Florida matchup is a Gene Cross special as part of the CBE Classic. The Gators have announced their non-conference schedule, with a TBA on Fri., Nov. 14. That should be Toledo. The Rockets will also have round-robin games on Nov. 24-26, likely on the campus of Florida International in Miami. In between the Florida trips, the Rockets will head to Cincinnati. Here's a read on the seven-footer Xavier has coming in, Massillon's Kenny Frease.

The University of Toledo media relations office sent out an updated football roster Monday morning. It appears only two players of those signed in February (Leroy Houston and Jermaine Robinson) did not make it to campus in August. That's much better than last season.
VIEW: Here is a PDF version of the roster. At the end of media day on Friday I was talking with UT juniors Stephen Williams and DaJuane Collins about where Sports Illustrated picked UT to finish this season. SI predicted UT would have a record of 2-10, 1-7 in the MAC. When I heard that prediction I was pretty surprised. It's hard to know what that's based on. Perhaps SI saw that the Rockets lost two NFL draft picks and a Ray Guy award finalist and figured they'd go in the tank. There had to be some reason why SI thought UT would have its worst record in 30 years (the Rockets went 2-9 in 1977 and 1978). It's more plausible to me that SI didn't put much thought into its prediction. The only stat I need to cite to make an educated guess on that is UT's home record under coach Tom Amstutz in seven years – 35-6. Less than one home loss per season. Even if you want to take the last two years as a sample size, where they lost two games at the Glass Bowl in each season, that still doesn't get us to 2-10. The Rockets have seven home games and SI is basically predicting UT will lose five of those, figuring they'll lose all their road games. It's probably a very complicated system to predict every team's record in the country. Now, Stephen Williams was laughing about this, saying it gave him some fuel for practice that day and it would be a joke if they worked this hard and they only won two games. But DaJuane Collins wasn't laughing. He seemed a little dazed by the prediction and didn't say much. The Rockets are going to use the predictions a lot for motivation this year. I haven't thought about my prediction for UT's record yet; I'll have that figured out by the end of preseason. But I know it will be extremely tough for me to pick against them at home.

I met with Coach Amstutz today to discuss the beginning of fall practice starting on Thursday, and he let me know his weekly coaches' radio show on Mondays is moving to the Fricker's in Maumee on Reynolds. WSPD is hoping to get more fans out there. it was previously held at the downtown Fricker's.