It certainly wasn’t by design, but the Ohio University football team fielded two distinctive defensive units during the 2015 regular-season.
One included play-making sophomore middle linebacker Quentin Poling. The other did not.
Take a guess which one had better results for the Bobcats.
Poling, a 6-0, 235-pounder out of Spencerville in northwest Ohio, was the Bobcats’ most important defender. The results speak for themselves.
In the eight games this season where Poling was available for all four quarters of play, the Bobcats allowed 119 points, or 14.9 per contest.
In the four games where Poling wasn’t available — he missed essentially three full games with an injury and served a two-quarter suspension at Minnesota — Ohio allowed 203 points, or a gaudy 50.