Bobcats' offense looks to lead once again in 2023

Tim Albin went into Cleveland for the 2022 Mid-American Conference Media Day ready to shock the world. Carrying over a lowly 3-9 team from 2021 that was entrenched at the bottom of most offensive categories in the conference, the then second-year head coach started talking about championships.
He wasn’t talking about guaranteeing anything, more the fact that he believed that he had a championship level team within the locker rooms at Peden Stadium. And well, maybe people should’ve caught on the Bobcat bandwagon a little sooner.
Albin’s squad, led by 2022 MAC Player of the Year Kurtis Rourke, went on to boast a historic 10-4 campaign, going 7-1 in conference play while also going a perfect 6-0 on the newly minted Frank Solich Field. Without Rourke on the field, Ohio fell 17-7 to Toledo in the MAC Championship game before bouncing back with an overtime win over Wyoming in the Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl.
“I thought we had a football team that could be in contention. We were, didn’t finish the way we wanted to. We made some adjustments we thought needed to happen in the offseason going into last year,” Albin said on the ESPN broadcast of MAC Media Day on Thursday. “We were able to win some of those close games we were not able to the year before.”
The program completely flipped the script from ‘21 to ‘22. The team went from last to first in scoring, averaging just under 32 points-per-game. Rourke led the league in passing yards per-game (296), touchdowns (25) and interceptions thrown (4) all while missing the final three games of the season.
“I said this as well last year, for us to take the next step as a program, Kurtis is going to need to take that next step, he certainly did,” Albin said, jokingly referring to his gaudy passing numbers. “Taking care of the football, he’s able to do that. We’ve got a great group of receivers, that production was off the charts.”
Albin stressed the importance of focusing day-by-day as the program worked back into a top-tier school in the MAC. The message worked beautifully last season as a way to keep everyone in check as the players were seeing success they had never felt with the program.
Now though, it’s a bit different. Picked as the preseason favorite for the MAC East and potentially set to challenge for the championship crown once again, there’s a new focus the staff has to worry about.
Albin mentioned during spring practice that he and the team now understands the challenge. They went from the hunters to the hunted in record time, now they just have to adjust.
There’s one place they won’t have to adjust all that much though.
With what was already a pretty historic season offensively for the Bobcats, Ohio returns nearly all of its key components. Out of the four receivers who recorded 30+ receptions, James Bostic is the only one not returning.
Leading the charge in the receiver room will be the returning Sam Wiglusz and Jacoby Jones. Wiglusz, the former Ohio State transfer, was tied for first in the MAC with 11 touchdowns while also hauling in 73 receptions for 877 yards.
Jones broke out in his first year with the Bobcats, grabbing 45 catches for 776 yards while also securing six touchdowns. These two will be crucial pieces in repeating the same success in the air from the 2022 season.
“It will be the deepest receiving core that we’ve had in my time. Dwayne Dixon and his tutelage, look at his resume, holy cow. We return all the tight ends,” Albin noted. “There’s some pieces there. If we can find a way to run the ball, that will help the quarterback play. It’s an exciting time.”
Sieh Bangura returns as the workhorse back after finishing fourth in the conference last year in rushing with nearly 90 yards-per-game. The runningback room also includes O’Shaan Allison, who returns from a season-ending shoulder surgery before last season even started. Allison, who was set to be a key back in 2022, rushed for 261 yards on 71 attempts in 2021. And, of course, Ohio is set to return the best quarterback in the league.
While the program has been patient with Rourke’s recovery with ACL surgery, the staff has continuously said that the star quarterback is “ahead of schedule” in his return.
Fully cleared medically and only awaiting to see the challenges of full-contact practice, it is still unclear if the 2022 MAC POY will be ready on Aug. 26 for the matchup with San Diego State. Even if the plan is to ease him into the season, a returning C.J. Harris has shown enough that he can be trusted to run the offense for a game or two.
Nothing is guaranteed until we see everybody hit the field, all we have to do is look back to the 2022 media projections to learn that lesson. Still though, the Ohio Bobcats are set up to repeat the success the program saw last season and even have the hopes of finally securing that elusive MAC title.