TLDR: Toledo sits 4-1 in the MAC and needs to keep winning in November to stay near the top of the conference. UMass comes to the Glass Bowl on Wednesday, November 11, after a 31-30 overtime win over Ball State that ended a month of losses.
Toledo (7-2, 4-1 MAC) hosts UMass (5-4, 2-3) at the Glass Bowl after needing everything to beat 2-7 Sacramento State 20-17. UMass broke a 4-game losing streak in overtime against Ball State with quarterback Pop Watson III back from the lower-body injury that cost him the Miami (OH) and Buffalo games. He threw for 302 yards that night. The game likely comes down to whether Watson can play like that again against a Toledo defense that has handled most of the MAC, and whether the Rockets' offense, still thin at receiver and tight end, can get back to scoring the way it did against Western Michigan.
+Scored 45 against Western Michigan when the offense got going
−Only beat 2-7 Sacramento State by 3
−TE Kelleher, WRs Gilbert Jr. and Jones out since Oct. 10
−Managed 8 points at home against Buffalo
The matchup to watch is Pop Watson III. The UMass quarterback missed the Miami (OH) and Buffalo games with a lower-body injury, and nothing new has come off the injury report heading into Wednesday, so he's expected to go. He looked fine against Ball State: 17-of-25 for 302 yards and a touchdown with no picks, plus 8 carries for 40 yards and 2 rushing scores, including the 13-yarder that won it in overtime. He leads the MAC with a 69.3% completion rate, with 9 touchdowns against 2 interceptions. Curtis Kimmons IV handled the ground work with 85 yards on 19 carries. With J. Washington shut down for the year, UMass needs that kind of production from Kimmons. If Watson can make plays with both his arm and his legs again, UMass can stay in this one. If he can't, UMass doesn't have much else that scares a defense.
Toledo's offense has been thin at the skill spots since early October. Tight end T. Kelleher and receivers K. Gilbert Jr. and T. Jones were all listed out on the Oct. 10 injury report, and nothing on game day suggests any of them is back. That day the Rockets lost to Buffalo 23-8 at home, and the offense has gone up and down since. It put up 45 in a shootout win over Western Michigan, then managed only 20 at Sacramento State. The forecast has moved since the first version of this preview: it now calls for 49 degrees, cloudy, a 34% chance of rain and almost no wind. That shouldn't hurt either passing game much unless the rain actually comes, and the total has already come down a bit from where it opened.
That Sacramento State game should worry Toledo fans a little. Previews had the Rockets as roughly a 25-point favorite over a 2-7 team. They won 20-17. A win is a win, and it was their 3rd straight, but a 3-point game against a team that bad means the Rockets aren't blowing anybody out lately.
The common opponents make these two look less alike than their records do. Both teams played Buffalo, and it went better for UMass. The Minutemen lost 25-18 in Buffalo, while Toledo scored 8 points against the Bulls at home. The other 2 shared opponents go Toledo's way by a lot. The Rockets won at Eastern Michigan 34-14, and Eastern Michigan won 38-14 at UMass. Toledo beat Ball State by 15 on the road, while UMass needed overtime to get by the Cardinals at home. That 4-game October skid looks different with Watson's injury in mind. The 2 one-score losses, 20-19 to Miami (OH) and 25-18 at Buffalo, both came with him out. This team can stay close. It just hasn't been able to finish games, and the Ball State win, with Watson back, was the first time in a while it did.
For Toledo, this is the kind of game a contender is supposed to win at home in November. The Rockets are 7-2 and 4-1 in the conference, and a loss at the Glass Bowl to a 2-3 league team would hurt a lot more than the close call at Sacramento State did. For UMass, at 5-4, this is a chance to show the overtime win over Ball State meant something. Toledo's defense held Eastern Michigan to 14 and Ball State to 24, so if the UMass offense can score against that group, the Minutemen are a better team than their October looked.
