Football Season Preview

THE INDEPENDENT

COLLEGIAN

Fall 2014

Toledo Trivia• Toledo was picked to win the Mid-American

Conference’s West Division this year, receiving 11 first-place votes and a total of 114 points in the annual media poll.

• 19 starters from last year’s 7-5 squad return for the 2014 season, including six All-MAC play-ers.

• Toledo boasts a veteran offensive line, which has started in 97 career games as a group. Newly appointed center Greg Mancz leads his teammates with 38 starts, followed by Josh Hendershot (25) and Jeff Myers (25).

• UT’s stadium, the Glass Bowl, was built in 1937.

• Toledo head coach Matt Campbell is enter-ing his third full year in charge of the Rockets, and he boasts a 17-9 overall record coming into the 2014 season.

• Toledo was the first MAC school to ever host a PAC-10 school, welcoming Arizona to the Glass Bowl in 2010. UT will play host to 2013 SEC East Division champion Missouri in 2014, and the Rockets will hope to get revenge for a 38-23 loss that the Tigers handed them last year.

• The Rockets have played for a national tele-vision audience 63 times, including five times in 2013 and 45 times in the last 10 years. All 12 of Toledo’s games will be televised in some format in 2014.

• Toledo leads the MAC with 16 former play-ers currently on NFL rosters.

• Emlen Tunnell was not only the first African-American to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame – he was also a former Rocket. Tunnell spent 14 years in the NFL, playing for the New York Giants as well as the Green Bay Packers. Another UT alumnus, RB Chester Taylor, was the first player out of the MAC to rush for 1,000 yards in an NFL season, piling up 1,216 yards for the Minnosota Vikings in 2006.

• UT has appeared in seven bowl games over the last 12 years, and the Rockets have a 9-4 overall record in bowls over the program’s his-tory.

• Toledo has had 25 All-Americans, the most recent being Eric Paige, who was a first-team All-American at kickoff returner in 2010.

• The Rockets have won 10 MAC Champion-ships and eight MAC West Division titles. UT has been ranked in the Top 25 in eight different sea-sons, including a No. 23 ranking in 2012.

2 | The Independent Collegian | Fall Semester 2014

IC FILE PHOTOThe Rockets last faced off against the University of Cincinnati during the 2012-2013 season, when they handed UC a 29-23 defeat. UT faces the Bearcats in Cincinnati on Sep. 12 at 7 p.m.

By Blake BachoSports Editor

When University of Toledo head football coach Matt Campbell announced on Mon-day, Aug. 25 that junior Phillip Ely would be his starting quar-terback for UT’s first game of the 2014 season, it wasn’t just news to the media members he was addressing.

It was also a nice little sur-prise for Ely himself.

“I didn’t really officially hear it until today,” Ely said after the press conference. “I will owe it to the coaches that they did a really good job with the pro-cess. We were all on our toes, we didn’t take a day off, and we all fought for what we really love doing — playing quarterback.”

Make no mistake: the compe-tition that awarded Ely with the start in Toledo’s season-opening bout against New Hampshire is not over, and the former Uni-versity of Alabama backup quarterback is fully aware of how quickly things can change in the world of college football.

“You’ve always got to be on your toes,” Ely said. “If you aren’t getting the job done, then there are two very qualified

guys behind [you] that can do that. That is what makes it fun, that you’ve got guys knocking on the door for the same spot and it is your job to be the best you can be at that spot and maintain it and be consistent at it.

“That’s my job, that’s what I got hired for and that’s what I like doing.”

The two individuals that stand behind Ely — sophomore Logan Woodside and redshirt freshman Michael Julian — are also well aware of where every-thing stands in this position battle.

The truth of the matter is that any one of these three Toledo quarterbacks could be asked to start at any time.

“You never know what is go-ing to happen in a game,” Woodside said. “At any point [Ely] could get injured — I hope he doesn’t — but you nev-er know what is going to hap-pen at this position. I’ve got to prepare myself as if I am going to be the starter each week and whatever happens is what happens.”

Woodside knows only too well how important it is for each man in UT’s quarterback room to prepare like they might be called upon at any moment.

The sophomore QB faced that situation last season when he was called into action to replace an injured Terrance Owens dur-ing Toledo’s home opener against Eastern Washington.

Owens went down in the first quarter of that game after scrambling for seven yards and taking a hard hit from an EWU defender.

Woodside came in after the hit and went 14-of-24 in pass-ing during UT’s 33-21 victory over EWU, and he finished his first game as a Rocket with 185

yards and one touchdown. Woodside would play in four games total in 2013, including a start at Central Michigan.

“At that time I was just doing anything I could to help my team win,” he said.

It is that dedication to foot-ball and to Toledo’s squad that has really rubbed off on Wood-side’s fellow quarterbacks.

“To see a younger guy, a guy that is only going to be a soph-omore, have so much knowl-edge of the game already, it is just awesome to see,” Ely said. “He takes full commitment into learning the game and offense.”

Woodside’s 24/7 commitment to football is something Julian admits to envying, as it is a skill he says he struggled with dur-ing his redshirt season last year.

“Being a redshirt freshman, I

didn’t focus on the game as much as I should have,” he ex-plained. “Looking at [Ely and Woodside] now, and how much film they watch, that is defi-nitely a big thing that I am working on.”

It is Julian’s athleticism that will keep him in this competi-tion, one of two such position battles he faces in his first ac-tive season at UT.

The redshirt freshman is also listed as the No. 2 punter right behind sophomore Nick Ellis.

“[Julian] is very athletic, very savvy in the read option game,” Ely said. “That is something that I did in high school but I don’t think I took full advantage of it.”

The decision to start Ely against New Hampshire over Woodside or Julian may have surprised all three men, but it is

Ely’s calm head and quick mind that ensure he never finds him-self that unawares when he goes under center.

“Phillip is a young guy that, the first thing you say is that he makes great decisions,” Camp-bell said. “He is a great decision-maker with the ball in his hands and that is what ultimately put him in a position to start game one for us.

“He is going to do the right thing with the football and he can make all the throws on the field.”

Ely may not have the athleti-cism obvious in Julian, or Woodside’s experience in Campbell’s offense, but two years in the Alabama program have taught him a lot about the game, not to mention the

Fall Semester 2014 | The Independent Collegian | 3

ALEX CAMPOS / ICToledo’s three quarterbacks (from left to right): sophomore Logan Woodside, redshirt freshman Michael Julian, and junior Phillip Ely. Ely was given the start for UT’s opener vs. New Hampshire.

THREE’S A CROWDEly chosen as first of UT’s three quarterbacks to start, but position competition remains wide open

“You’ve always got to be on your toes. If you aren’t get-ting the job done, then there are two very qualified guys behind you that can do that. That is what makes it fun....”

PHILLIP ELYJunior quarterback

See Crowd / 6 »


IC FILE PHOTOThe Battle of I-75 Trophy (pictured above) has belonged to Toledo for four consecutive seasons, and UT will go for a fifth on Nov. 19.

Taking a glimpse at 2014

IC FILE PHOTORockets head football coach Matt Campbell enters his third full season at the helm of the Toledo program with a 17-9 record.

IC FILE PHOTOFormer UT quarterback Terrance Owens scrambles during last season’s Battle for I-75 rival game against the Bowling Green Falcons. With Owens gone, three quarterbacks are hoping to earn the starting position in 2014. Campbell named junior Phillip Ely the starter for Toledo’s home opener.


With the Rockets set to start the haul through the 2014 calendar, several games can’t help but stick out more than others.

Though not everyone will agree on a list of Toledo’s most notable contests, many of this season’s matchups have plenty of potential to be memorable.

Three’s a crowd

The Rockets’ season-opener against New Hampshire will take place in familiar territory for ev-eryone but Toledo’s signal caller.

Junior Phillip Ely, who sat out last year after transferring from the University of Alabama, was chosen by Matt Campbell as the first of UT’s three potential quarterbacks to start a 2014 game.

Ely’s first snaps as a Rocket will be crucial to him

maintaining the lead in Toledo’s tight quarterback battle. Fans may even get a chance to see more than one of UT’s signal callers in this game, as Camp-bell would only assure Ely a start against New Hampshire.

Pinkel’s return

Gary Pinkel should probably not expect a warm welcome when he leads the University of Missouri football team into the Glass Bowl on September 6.

Pinkel, who coached football in Toledo from 1991 until his sud-den departure for Mizzou in 2000, led his Tigers to a 38-23 victory over the Rockets last season.

Missouri went on to win the SEC East Division in 2013.

A second helping of Bearcat

The Rockets won’t be able to

surprise the University of Cin-cinnati this season.

The Bearcats have known ex-actly what kind of program Tole-do boasts since UC fell to UT 29-23 two years ago at the Glass Bowl. At the time, Cincinnati was ranked No. 18, and the victory moved UT to 5-1 at home against top 25 teams.

This time around, the Rock-ets will have to travel south for another chance at knocking off their AAC opponent. Toledo’s faceoff with Cincinnati will be UT’s third game of the 2014 season.

Toledo’s other rivals

Recent Toledo students might be a little confused as to which Mid-American Conference pro-gram is actually UT’s biggest rivals.

While that title might still

See Glimpse / 5 »


-August -UT vs. New HampshireSaturday, Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. Glass Bowl

-September-UT vs. MissouriSaturday, Sept. 6 at 12 p.m.Glass Bowl

UT at CincinnatiFriday, Sept. 12 at 7 p.m.Cincinnati, OH

UT vs. Ball StateSaturday, Sept. 20 at TBAGlass Bowl

UT vs. Central MichiganSaturday, Sept. 27 at TBAGlass Bowl

-October-UT at Western MichiganSaturday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.mKalamazoo, MI

UT at Iowa StateSaturday, Oct. 11 at 3:30 p.m.Ames, IA

UT vs. UMassSaturday, Oct. 25 at 2 p.m.Glass Bowl

-November-UT at Kent StateTuesday, Nov. 4 at 8 p.m.Kent, OH

UT at Northern IllinoisTuesday, Nov. 11 at 8 p.m.DeKalb, IL

UT vs. BGSUWednesday, Nov. 19 at 8 p.m.Glass Bowl

UT at Eastern MichiganFriday, Nov. 28 at TBAYpsilanti, MI

-December-MAC ChampionshipFriday, Dec. 5 at TBAFord Field, Detroit, MI

officially belong to Bowling Green State, the Rockets have had much more trouble recently with Northern Illinois.

Last season, Former NIU quarterback Jordan Lynch and his teammates handed Toledo a 35-17 loss to knock UT out of contention for the MAC Championship. The defeat marked the fourth year in a row that saw the Huskies responsible for ending Toledo’s hopes at reaching the title game.

Once again, the Rockets will face Northern Illi-nois late in the season in a game that is sure to have plenty of meaning for both teams.

Battle for I-75

The Rockets succeeded in at least one mission during their 2013-2014 campaign.

They kept the Battle for I-75 trophy in Toledo for a fourth consecutive year.

UT handed the Falcons a 28-25 defeat, and they will be looking to hand them another loss when BG-SU arrives at the Glass Bowl on November 19.

Toledo will need another impressive performance this season from junior wide receiver Alonzo Rus-sell, who caught the game-winning touchdown last year, if the Rockets hope to defeat their rivals for a fifth-straight season.

The Falcons were MAC West Champions, as well as the winners of the MAC Championship game last year.

Glimpsefrom page 4

Toledo 2014 Schedule

IC FILE PHOTOSenior Greg Mancz enters his final season at the University of Toledo challenged with learning a new position. Mancz has been moved to center for the 2014 season to replace former Rocket Zac Kerin, who is in Minnesota trying to earn an NFL roster spot.


quarterback position. After redshirting his 2011

season with the Crimson Tide, Ely spent 2012 backing up Ala-bama star A.J. McCarron, who is currently a backup quarter-back himself with the Cincin-nati Bengals.

Ely played backup in six games that year, but had very little live game experience, completing 3-of-4 passes for 42 yards and one touchdown over that span.

“Of course it was a great experi-ence to be around a program that was as elite as [Alabama],” Ely said. “As many victories as it has you can’t help but take good things from it. What I learned from A.J. and the coaches from Alabama is that it is all about the details.

“At every school it is always going to come down to the de-tails and it is good to see Tole-do implementing the same thing.”

As for the rather large detail of who will be Toledo’s 2014 starting quarterback, fans may

have to tune in each week to find out. Campbell has yet to assure anything besides that he is comfortable calling on any one of his three potential signal callers.

“We really have the utmost con-fidence in all three of our quarter-backs,” he said. “That whole posi-tion group I am really excited about. I am really excited about what that group stands for and what their future brings.”

Crowd from page 3 “We really have the

utmost confidence in all three of our quarterbacks. That whole position group I am really excited about. I am really excited about what that group stands for and what their future brings.”

MATT CAMPBELLUT head football coach

IC FILE PHOTOSophomore Logan Woodside (shown above) is the only one of Toledo’s three quarterback candidates to have already taken snaps as a Rocket coming into the 2014 season. Junior signal caller Phillip Ely will soon join Woodside in that category, as Campbell named Ely the team’s week one starter. The Rockets will host New Hampshire and Missouri at home in the Glass Bowl before hitting the road to take on The University of Cincinnati. Four of UT’s first five games are at home.

Toledo’s quarterbacks by the numbers

Phillip Ely (junior)

Played backup quarterback in six games at the University of Alabama in 2012, recording 42 yards and one touchdown during that span.

Ely was a U.S. Army All-American coming out of high school, and he was ranked as the No. 20 pro-style quarterback prospect by Rilvals.com and the No. 48 player by ESPNU, as well as the No. 41 QB by Scout.com.

Ely led the Blue team to a 20-7 victory during Toledo’s annual spring scrimmage. The junior quarterback completed 17-of-30 passes for 220 yards and two touchdowns.

Michael Julian (redshirt freshman)

Sat out the 2013 season as a redshirt after coming to Toledo ranked as a three-star recruit by ESPN.com and 24/7 Sports. Julian was ranked as the No. 11 prospect in the state of South Carolina by ESPN.

The Hilton Head Island native was a three-year starter in high school, and he led South Carolina to a Shrine Bowl victory over North Carolina. Julian threw for 1,884 yards and 15 touchdowns as a junior.

Julian is also listed as the No. 2 punter on Toledo’s 2014 depth chart.

Logan Woodside (sophomore)

Played in four games for the Rockets in 2013. Woodside completed 14-of-24 passes for 185 yards off the bench to lead Toledo to a 33-21 win over Eastern Washington, also throwing a career-best 81-yard touchdown during that game.

The sophomore quarterback completed 138-of-212 passes for 2,951 yards and a school-record 41 touchdowns as a senior at Franklin County high school in 2012. The Kentucky native led his team to a 12-1 record before taking them all the way into the third round of the state playoffs. Woodside was named Offensive MVP for Team Kentucky in the Best of the Bluegrass All-Star game.


The wait for the University of Toledo football team is finally over.

Winter has come and gone, spring came and went and the summer is nearing an end. The Rockets couldn’t be happier to fi-nally stop hitting each other and start hitting players who they don’t sit next to during classes.

“Camp was long, summer has been long and spring was long, “said junior defensive end Trent Voss. “To finally see someone who is not in blue and gold will be exciting.”

For the Rockets, 2014 isn’t just a chance to build new memories and fight for a Mid-American Conference Championship; it is also a chance to finally forget about the disappointments of last season, something head coach Matt Campbell is confident will be easy for his squad.

“We are dealing with 18 to 22-year-old kids,” he said. “I don’t mean to say this jokingly, but these guys sometimes don’t even know what is going on in the next 24 hours. They are worried about the here and now and I think that is why, for us, so much of it is about the process.”

Campbell’s players seem im-patient to reach the next step of that process, the one where they actually get to play live football.

“It has been a long time since I have really put on a jersey to be the guy,” said junior quarterback Phillip Ely. “That is the feeling that I love. You love putting on those pads and kind of being the guy.

“We are all itching to get out there.”

All three of Toledo’s potential starting quarterbacks are eager to reach the field this year, but two of them have been waiting an ex-ceptionally long time.

While sophomore Logan Woodside was able to step out onto the turf of the Glass Bowl last season due to an injury to former quarterback Terrance Owens, Ely and redshirt fresh-man Michael Julian saw noth-ing but position meetings and

bench time while they sat and waited for their turn.

The team redshirted Julian in 2013 while Ely had to sit out af-ter transferring from Alabama.

“I am very eager to get on the field,” Julian said. “Coming from high school where I started three years and then coming here and having to sit out a year, I am really ready to get back out on the field.”

Senior offensive lineman Greg Mancz, who is moving to the center position to replace departed Rocket Zac Kerin, is also excited for the new season, and he will be looking to get comfortable at his new spot as quick as possible.

“It has been a challenge just because it is a new position,” Mancz said of the learning pro-cess. “Every time you move it is a different mindset maybe, but it has been a blessing because I have been with four other

redshirt seniors who I have been with since day one, so it has been nice having those guys around me helping me through the process.”

Voss, like Mancz, is also learn-ing a new position this year, hav-ing switched from linebacker to defensive end.

“It’s been pretty smooth,” he said of the transition. “I just have to

focus on the new things that I need to be working on like being down in the box, things like that. Wherever they want to put me is where I am going to try to succeed.”

The new position Voss finds himself learning brings him much closer to Toledo’s veteran offensive line, something he says he does not mind very much.

“I like it a little bit,” he said, smiling. “I’ve been around these guys a little bit and now I can fi-nally get under their facemasks. It’s a joy.”

Voss and the rest of UT’s de-fense will need to be a much-improved unit from the one that Toledo featured last season if the Rockets hope to reach the MAC Championship in 2014.

“When you play nine of elev-en starters last year that are all either freshmen or sophomores, and you play a bunch of young

guys, you watch that group come together and work each and every day to get better,” Campbell said. “I think that we are kind of almost spoiled in that we get to watch the prog-ress that group has made from their last football game last year to where they are ready to be starting this season.

“I am really excited to watch that group. I think they are on a mission, and that mission is to continue to improve and to continue to get better each and every day.”

Individual and team missions aside, the wait to see how improved the Rockets are is at an end.

For fan and player alike, one thing is absolutely clear: it has been a very long offseason.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for the season,” Voss said. “It is just going to be a good feeling to get back on the field and get back into game week.”


IC FILE PHOTOJunior defensive end Trent Voss (shown above returning an interception against Central Michigan) is transitioning to the defensive line from linebacker this season. Voss says he has enjoyed the transition, calling the chance to get at the offensive lineman “a joy.”

Rockets hungry for new beginning

“Camp was long, summer has been long and spring was long. To finally see someone who is not in blue and gold will be exciting.”

TRENT VOSSJunior defensive end


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