“We’ve got to play cleaner football,” said Martin, who is in his 10th season as head coach at Miami. “Again, I’ve been saying this. It’s been a little bit of a broken record. At the end of the day, who we are, we’ve talked about it the other day. We’re not a very fancy operation. It’s not who we are. So when you’re not a fancy operation, you have to do all the little things.”
Here are four takeaways from Saturday’s game:
1. ‘Seven-minute disaster’
Martin made it clear that the first seven minutes against Toledo immediately slanted the game’s momentum.
Miami muffed the opening kickoff but recovered it at the 13-yard line, and the RedHawks (1-4) didn’t convert on a third-and-1 that stalled at the Miami 34.
Toledo returned a punt 32 yards before converting a third-and-6 and a fourth-and-1 resulting in a Tucker Gleason touchdown off running back Connor Walendzak’s fumble in the end zone.
“The advantage of somewhat being simple at times, I know be it special teams is being really good at what we do and taking advantage of the fact that we do it over and over,” Martin said. “And we’re good at what we do. And there’s simple things on special teams that we’re not executing. You can’t be simple when you’re poor at executing stuff. Now, you’re behind the eight ball.”
The RedHawks went three-and-out their next possession, but a botched punt gave the Rockets the ball back in scoring position. Three plays later, Gleason hit Jerjuan Smith on a 6-yard touchdown pass to put Toledo on top 14-0 with 6:51 left in the first quarter.
“When you play a high-end team like Toledo, you can’t have a seven-minute disaster like we started the game off,” Martin said. “Still a lot of things the last 53 minutes of the game that we have to do better.”
2. Defensive communication is key
Miami linebacker Matt Salopek said communicating on the defensive side of the ball is a point of emphasis moving forward.
“Through the first four games, I thought we didn’t do a good job of tackling, pursuing,” Salopek said. “I made some bad checks on Saturday that didn’t get us in good position especially on the back end.
“We were in man a couple times when we shouldn’t have been, and it hurt us. That kind of just goes back to me.”
Gleason threw for 318 yards, but Miami held the running game to just 46 yards before Connor Walendzak broke off a 32-yard gain that helped set up the Rockets’ final score in the fourth.
3. Corban coming up clutch
Corban Hondru stepped in for an injured Ty Wise — who went into the locker room in the first quarter Saturday — and made it count.
Hondru, a redshirt junior linebacker, had two interceptions and a career-high 11 tackles for the Miami defense.
“He did a really good job. He’s a smart kid,” Salopek said of Hondru. “Sometimes I think he’s smarter than me — which I don’t give out that compliment a lot.
“But he’s really good in coverage. He has a great feel — especially in our zone stuff. He works off quarterbacks really well. He gets into windows, and he’s a playmaker at the end of the day, and I’m really proud of him. He’s done a great job.”
4. Banged up RedHawks
Wise did not return when he exited the game. But Martin said things checked out to where the senior linebacker could see the field when Miami travels to Eastern Michigan this weekend.
“(Wise) had one injury going into the game, and he got another injury in the game,” Martin said. “He’s got multiple things he’s battling there. He’s got a chance (to play) there.”
Veteran offensive lineman Kolby Borders has been nursing an ankle injury, and he saw the field briefly on Saturday. He didn’t finish the game, though.
“Trying to get Borders back, he tried to give it a go, he couldn’t,” Martin said. “I appreciate that he wanted to be out there and fighting. But he couldn’t help us. It’s tough because you love that kids want to fight through some pain, but it was obvious when we did have him out there that we’re not better with him out there even though he’s really fighting for his teammates. Totally appreciate it, but we’re trying to get him back healthier which we have another week to hopefully get him to that point.”
Senior tight end Jack Coldiron came back against Toledo after missing the Massachusetts game, but he also went to the sideline last weekend.
“The good news is that he’s going to be back,” Martin said. “The bad news is that he’s going to be out for a little bit. Hopefully, it’s not too long.”
5. Coaches quotable
“Our focus is still on ourselves and how we’re trying to play football,” Martin said. “The only thing I really care about outside of my family in the whole world is watching good football. The results will come if you play the game the right way. If you don’t play the game the right way, the results won’t come.
“We have not been as consistent as we need to be against the people we’ve played,” Martin added. “You go on the road and you have a seven-minute debacle at the beginning of the game, well they’re hard enough to beat anyway. You spot them 14 points. We need to play better on ST there, we need to play better on offense there, and we need to play better on defense there.
“There’s things that we pride ourselves in doing that we’re not doing very well at the level that we expect to do it. We do it very well in spurts. But this is bread and butter to who we are. We’ve got to be like this all the time because it’s who we are. If not, then we’ve got to become somebody else. We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
SATURDAY’S GAME
Miami at Eastern Michigan, 2 p.m., 980, 1450
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