Toledo Runs for 354 Yards and Pulls Away from Ball State 39-24
Toledo ran 49 times for 354 yards and did not throw an interception or lose a fumble. Ball State did both. That is most of the story, and the rest is a long run at the end that made the final look wider than the game was.
Ball State started well. Keldric Luster hit Alex Scherle from 4 yards out at 10:09 of the first quarter, and when Brody Boehm kicked a 38-yard field goal in the second it was 10-6 Ball State. Toledo answered with a safety, then took its first lead on John Alan Richter's 11-yard pass to Daryl Barnett Jr. with the clock at 0:00 in the second quarter, 15-10. The Rockets never gave it back.
Connor Walendzak ran 30 yards for a touchdown at 2:57 of the third, 22-10. TJ Horton cut it to 22-17 with a 66-yard run 40 seconds later. Then CJ Miller scored from 2 yards out early in the fourth and Reice Griffith added a 24-yard field goal, his third of the day, to make it 32-17. Luster found Jabari Smith from 33 yards at 2:09, 32-24, a one-score game. Miller ended it with a 68-yard run 34 seconds later. Take that run away and it is 32-24, still an eight-point Toledo lead.
Miller finished with 20 carries for 196 yards and two touchdowns, and Richter needed only 201 passing yards on 19 of 35 to get Toledo to 39. Ball State threw for 238 and ran for 132, but gave the ball away twice, and a game this close in the middle can't afford that.
Toledo moves to 4-1. Ball State is 1-4. Fantasy-wise, this was a Rockets backfield game: Miller 31.6, Walendzak 19.8, and not much left for anyone else on that side.