Miami linebacker Clayton Mullins brings Minnesota running back Harold Howell down to the ground during Saturday's triple-overtime game. --Tyler Mckean/The Minnesota Daily
Despite battling through injuries and a deafening Minnesota crowd, Miami University still managed to drive the Golden Gophers into overtime Saturday.
The RedHawks battled back from a 28-12 deficit late in the fourth quarter and sent the game into overtime, only to fall 41-35 in triple overtime to the Golden Gophers. It was the second triple overtime game in the history of Miami football.
After losing middle linebacker Joey Hudson in the second series to injury, the RedHawks defense opened up against the run. The Golden Gophers' Amir Pinnix ran for 126 yards and one touchdown, while quarterback Adam Weber's ran for 97 yards and a touchdown of his own.
"It's not just the linebackers, it's our four upfront," Miami Head Coach Shane Montgomery said. "We've got to find out who our best combinations are. Obviously when you go against a Big Ten team like that, you've got to find ways to stop the run. We've just got to keep getting our young guys upfront, keep getting them more experience, just keep using as many as we can and obviously get great production from our linebackers like we did the first ball game."
If losing Hudson wasn't enough for the RedHawks, after dealing with injuries all last season, running back Brandon Murphy went down in the fourth quarter with a knee injury. Although it doesn't look as serious as his season ending injury last year, Murphy had an MRI Monday, will receive results Tuesday and will most likely not play in this weekend's game against Cincinnati. Before leaving the game, Murphy ran for 78 yards on 12 touches.
"Obviously when you loose a guy like Brandon, he had a great year two years ago and he was running really well, obviously you feel bad for him, not just for us, but you feel bad for him because he worked really hard to get back to where he was," Montgomery said. "We're going to have some other guys pick it up."
Losing Murphy will give the majority of the rushes to Andre Bratton, who took over for Murphy and racked up 58 yards in the game and one touchdown.
"Obviously with Brandon, we felt good with where he had been, he ran really well the first two ball games," Montgomery said. "If he's going to be out right now then obviously Andre Bratton is going to have to pick up some of the slack and we're going to have to get some of the other guys ready."
Murphy wasn't the only player to come out during the fourth quarter.
After throwing for 196 yards, including an interception and his first touchdown of the season, quarterback Mike Kokal was benched in favor of redshirt sophomore Dan Raudabaugh.
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Raudabaugh came in with under 10 minutes left in the game and rallied the RedHawks back from a 16-point deficit, throwing two touchdowns, one to redshirt freshman Armand Robinson and then another to freshman Chris Givens. Raudabaugh then set up kicker Trevor Cook for the game-tying 36-yard field goal, to tie the game at 28.
In the first overtime, Miami scored first on a touchdown run by Bratton, but Minnesota would answer on their possession during the first overtime with a touchdown pass of their own.
The RedHawk defense held Minnesota scoreless in the second overtime, but Cook missed the potential game-winning field goal and the game went to a third overtime.
Miami would be unable to score in the third overtime, and Minnesota would punch in the winning touchdown from four yards out to squeak by the Red and White and capture the win.
"We never thought we were out of that game at all," Raudabaugh said. "We made some big plays. Some young guys stepped up, the line blocked well and we put the ball where we needed to. We put ourselves in situation to win the game. I never thought we were out of position to win the game. To be in a spot during a game like that, it's a good feeling. It stinks that we came up on the short end of the game as a whole, but to come back and give our chance to win, it's a good feeling."
Although benching Kokal during the fourth quarter, Montgomery said that it wasn't poor performance that got him benched-the RedHawks just needed to go into a new direction to spark the offense.
"Looking back at the film, Kokal did not play bad at all," Montgomery said. "He had a couple of plays that I'm sure he would have like to have back. He had a couple of things happen to him during the game, where if the players around him had some things happen and we score some more points it looks like he played very well. It was good to see (Raudabaugh) come in at the time that he did. I felt like we needed a lift. I knew we were going to have to throw the ball. Daniel is more of a straight drop back passer than Mike is and I thought that we just needed a spark at that time."
The RedHawks come home to Yager Stadium at noon Saturday to take on Cincinnati in the Battle for the Victory Bell game.
Saturday's game has been declared a "whiteout the stadium game," urging all fans to wear white to Yager so that the stadium looks completely white for the ESPN broadcast.
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