Jeff Kahntroff/Student LifeIn order to win its UAA opener and retain possession of the Founder’s Cup, the Washington University Bears football team had to find a way to contain the University of Chicago offense without injured star middle linebacker Brandon Roberts or starting wide receiver Jeff Buening.
Despite the missing players, both sides of the ball played their best game of the season as the Bears snapped a two-game slide and beat the Maroons in Chicago on Saturday 38-17.
On the first play from scrimmage, safety John Woock stole the ball out of a Maroon players’ hands to set up a Ben Lambert field goal.
The rest of the first half was marked by a balanced Bears offensive attack. Freshman quarterback Nathan Szep, who finished 24-40 for 313 yards, threw his first of four touchdown passes with 7:33 remaining in the second quarter as the Bears jumped out to a 10-0 lead. Running back Matt Plotke, who amassed a career high 133 yards on the ground, broke free for a 50-yard touchdown run with just under five minutes to play in the first half.
The Maroon offense finally plugged in a touchdown on a Josh Dunn to Joe Polaneczky nine yard TD pass. Dunn finished the game 23-47 and threw for 246 yards, but was pressured the whole game by the Bears’ defense.
“We knew pressure would be important. We tried to get him off rhythm and thought we could force him to misfire if he was under pressure,” said head coach Larry Kindbom.
Following Szep’s third quarter touchdown pass to freshman wide receiver Brad Duesing, who finished the game with nine receptions for 97 yards and two touchdowns, the Maroons’ offense began to click, and they closed the gap to 24-17 by the end of the third quarter.
However, the fourth quarter belonged to the Bears. A Ryan Allerman interception led to another Szep touchdown pass, this time to sophomore wide receiver Zak Clark. Later in the fourth quarter, after a critical defensive stop by WU, Szep tossed his fourth TD pass of the game to Mike Friedman and put the game out of reach.
“We showed them some things they hadn’t seen before. Szep scrambled on a boot pass which they did not expect, which turns an incompletion or a throw away into a first down,” Kindbom said. “A lot of the success also came due to good pass protection and the receivers doing something after the catch.”
The key to the Bears offensive success was their play on third downs, on which they converted over 70% of the time.
“There were some runs, some passes; it was easier because we did a better job on first downs and we mixed our plays up with things they had not seen before,” Kindbom said.
The Bears will return to action on Saturday for this year’s Homecoming contest against Case Western Reserve University. The winner of Saturday’s game will move into first place in the University Athletic Association.