Chippewas Rebound, Roll Past Buffalo

Oct. 17, 2015

Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - No frantic comeback. No moral victory against a Power-5 school.

This time it was a good old fashioned whuppin'.

Cooper Rush threw four touchdown passes, Jesse Kroll caught seven passes for a career-high 133 yards, and the Central Michigan defense forced four turnovers Saturday as the Chippewas rolled to a 51-14 Mid-American Conference victory over Buffalo at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.

The victory came a week after CMU made a valiant comeback only to fall at rival Western Michigan, 41-39, and two weeks after playing well before falling at then-No. 2 Michigan State.

"Definitely we wanted to get that bad taste out of our mouth," Rush said in reference to last week's loss at Western Michigan. "We had a good week of practice we were ready to go and we made plays today."

The Chippewas, 3-4, 2-1 MAC, go to Ball State (2-5, 1-2) next Saturday for a league game. The 51 points was the most a CMU team has scored since a 52-14 win over Eastern Michigan on Sept. 18, 2010.

CMU, operating from a no-huddle set, scored touchdowns on five of its first six possessions, and added a safety on a blocked punt in racing to a 37-7 halftime lead and making the final two quarters academic.

"Starting fast is key," Rush said. "Coach Bono talks about it all week and to come out and execute it was big, it was big for us. We stepped up to the challenge as a team and we're going to have to do it again next week. "

Rush continued in his emergence as one of the MAC's top signal-callers, completing 23-of-30 pass attempts. The four TD passes tied his career high for a regular-season game. He also threw four last week at Western.

Rush engineered first-half scoring drives of 78, 56, 76, 50 and 39 yards. His 1-yard quarterback sneak put CMU up, 14-7, late in the first quarter.

"It was great to see our offense operate with an up-tempo no-huddle," Bonamego said. "We felt like that was going to be an advantage for us this week, not allowing Buffalo to sub, and it turned out working very well to our advantage."

Rush's 46-yard TD pass to Kroll early in the second extended the lead to 21-7, then the Chippewas made it 23-7 when Zach Oakley blocked a punt and the ball rolled out of the Bulls' end zone for a safety.

After the ensuing free kick, Rush tossed a 2-yard TD pass to backup fullback Trevor Thomas to make it 30-7.

Kavon Frazier intercepted a pass on Buffalo's next play, and CMU cashed in when Rush found Anthony Rice for a 23-yard TD pass and, with under three minutes to play in the half, the Chippewas led 37-7.

"We challenged our team all week to not let one disappointment turn into two," CMU coach John Bonamego said, referring to his team's ability to bounce back after the loss last week. "It becomes very easy at times, if you allow yourself to ride the emotional roller coaster of a season.

"We challenged them to start out fast, which is something that we weren't able to do with enough consistency in (earlier) games this year. So it was great to see us come out and execute on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game in the first half. I thought in the second half we finished it off as well."

Next Event

Team Stats

Cooper Rush

Players Mentioned

Kavon Frazier

Jesse Kroll

Zach Oakley

Anthony Rice

Cooper Rush

Trevor Thomas