Rocket Blog: My 12 All-Time Favorite Rocket Football Victories
Trevon Mathis, Head Coach Jason Candle, Logan Woodside and the Rockets celebrate their 2017 MAC Championship victory.
University of Toledo Associate Athletic Director for Communications Paul Helgren shares his 12 favorite Rocket Football victories since 1998, the year he began working with Toledo Football. No. 7 on the list is the Rockets' 45-28 victory over Akron at the 2017 MAC Championship Game.
Toledo 45, Akron 28 (Dec. 2, 2017)
Watch the 2017 MAC Championship Game
Time is always relative, so the question of whether 13 years is a long time depends on your point of view. For Toledo football fans in 2017, that was how long it had been since their team had won a MAC Championship.
In some ways, 13 years does not seem so long. It's been 36 years since my Detroit Tigers last won a World Series. That seems like yesterday. Sort of. It's been 63 years since my other losing Detroit sports franchise, the Lions, won an NFL championship. That was before I was born so you could say that feels like forever.
But for Rocket Football fans, 13 years did seem like a long time. I think the reason is because of how close their team had come to making it to the MAC title game in the years from 2005 to 2016. In five of those years (2005, 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2016) Toledo came within a game – and sometimes within a play – of representing the West Division in the MAC Championship Game.
So when the Rockets were picked to win the MAC once again in 2017, you could forgive their fans if they were a little reluctant to make their reservations for Detroit. But Head Coach
Jason Candle had something going in his favor that some of those previous Rocket squads did not – the best quarterback in the Mid-American Conference.
Logan Woodside had a spectacular, if unorthodox, collegiate career. He was pressed into duty as a freshman in 2013 due to an injury to starting QB Terrance Owens, and then again as a sophomore in 2014 when Phillip Ely went down. Woodside really blossomed in his sophomore season, throwing for 2,263 yards and 19 touchdowns, and leading the Rockets to a 63-44 win over Arkansas State in the GoDaddy Bowl. However, he was beat out for the starting QB job in 2015 by Ely, and watched that entire season from the sidelines as a mid-career redshirt. That may have helped him in the long run, however, as he put up gigantic numbers in 2016, setting school records for passing yards (4,129), touchdown passes (45) and passing efficiency (183.9). All Woodside needed to cap his brilliant career was a championship ring.
Woodside and the Rockets were never seriously challenged in league play in 2017. Their lone stumble was a 38-10 loss at Ohio. Needing a victory in their final game of the season, Toledo smashed Western Michigan, 37-10, to earn a matchup with the East Division champion Akron Zips. The Rockets had defeated Akron in the regular season, 48-21, so there were some suggestions that Toledo had its long-awaited league title in the bag. Woodside and his teammates were not about to fall for that trap.
"That game has no bearing on what's going to happen tomorrow," said Woodside at the news conference at Ford Field the day before the game. "We're both totally different teams from five weeks ago. We know they're going to be ready to go."
I actually recall that pregame news conference very well because I almost missed it. Earlier that week, I had received a call letting me know that my older brother Ted had been rushed to a hospital near his home in Detroit with severe stomach pains. The eventual diagnosis was as grim as it was shocking: pancreatic cancer. I told him I would come up to see him in the hospital on Friday, right before the MAC Championship Game pre-game news conference at Ford Field.
During that visit, I learned from the doctors that Ted's cancer was inoperable. All they could do was to make him as comfortable as possible in his final days. It was a tough visit. Sports had always been a bond for us so it was natural that we talked about the Rockets' game the next day. He said he would watch it and root for the Rockets, if he was able. I stayed as long as I could, then hopped in my car and quickly speeded for Ford Field, arriving a few minutes before the news conference began.
The game itself was a blowout. The Rockets led 28-0 at halftime and were up 38-0 before Akron finally scored with 30 seconds left in the third quarter. The Zips tacked on two meaningless touchdowns in the fourth quarter, the last with 20 seconds remaining, to make the final score a very misleading 45-28.
Woodside, as usual, was masterful. He completed 23-of-37 passes for 307 yards and four TDs. Akron could not cover either of the Johnsons, Diontae and Jon'Vea. Diontae caught nine passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns, while Jon'Vea hauled in six passes for 103 yards and one score. Senior running back Terry Swanson had one of his best days as a collegian, rushing for 180 yards and two TDs. Akron's offense could do nothing against Toledo's defense when the game was still on the line. In their first 10 possessions the Zips had seven punts, one turnover, one missed field goal and one loss-on-downs.
The lopsided score made it no less joyous for the Rockets and their fans. Thirteen years of close calls and frustration were forgotten on this day. All of Rocket Nation shared in the victory.
"It's been a long time since we've been able to bring one of these back to the City of Toledo," Candle said after the game. "I'm so happy for our city and so happy for our university, and really proud that the City of Toledo showed up the way they did today, what I thought it was a tremendous crowd for the game."
The joy and excitement of the Rockets' win had a somber coda for me. After all my post-game duties were finished, I drove back to the hospital to visit my brother. He congratulated me on the Toledo victory but confessed he had not been able to watch as much as he wanted. He was in a lot of pain and under heavy sedation. I stayed with him until it was time for him to go to the operating room. Doctors hoped to repair some internal damage that would allow him to eat solid food in the remaining days of his life. As the nurses carted him away, I told him lots of his friends and family -- and even some folks he had never met -- were praying for him. "I'll take prayers," he said weakly.
Six weeks later, I was at his side, along with my family and his son and daughter, when Ted passed away. He was 58.
Yes, time is relative. Thirteen years is an eternity. Fifty-eight years is a blink of an eye. The Rockets' victory at Ford Field that day in 2017 is a day that will forever be etched in the shared memory of all of us in Rocket Nation – players, coaches and fans.
I share in that happy memory, too. But I will always save a little piece of that day for the memory of a brother whose time ran out far too soon.
My brother Ted (left) and I about three weeks before he passed away in
January of 2018.
Paul Helgren's All-Time Favorite Rocket Victories
7. Toledo 45, Akron 28 (Dec. 2, 2017)
8. Toledo 16, Arkansas 12 (Sept. 12, 2015)
9. Toledo 33, Northern Illinois 30 (Nov. 23, 2002)
10. Toledo 42, Air Force 41 (Dec. 29, 2011 – Military Bowl)
11. Toledo 44, Bowling Green 41 (2OT) (Nov. 22, 2005)
12. Toledo 32, Temple 17 (Dec. 22, 2015 - Marmot Boca Raton Bowl)
