The Falcons found themselves in a good position Saturday night late in the fourth quarter, despite trailing by seven points with just under two minutes left.

Senior wide receiver Freddie Barnes had just returned a punt 54 yards, giving his team 1:40 to cover 22 yards and score a potential game-tying touchdown.

But when his number was called to keep the drive alive on fourth and one with 1:22 left in the game, he was unable to come up with what would have been the team’s catch of the year so far.

After quarterback Tyler Sheehan threw incompletions on first and second downs and scrambled ahead for 9 yards on third down, Falcon coach Dave Clawson called a time-out to draw up the game’s most important play.

‘We expected them in a blitz and tried to get the ball to our best player,’ Clawson said.

The team lined up for a fourth and one – that was more like a fourth and two according to Clawson – ready to defend that blitz and watch Barnes work his magic.

The Bobcats did blitz, bringing linebacker Noah Keller, who was credited with a quarterback hurry on the play, and several other defenders Sheehan’s way.

Sheehan made an accurate throw, but the ball was tipped by safety Steven Jackson. Barnes, who wasn’t available for comment after the game, didn’t give up on the play though, and got his hands on the tip, but couldn’t haul it in after bobbling it several times in the end zone.

‘In that situation you always want to give your best players a chance to make plays,’ Clawson said. ‘Freddie’s made a ton of plays for us this year. That was one he unfortunately didn’t make.

‘Tyler put the ball where it should be, and that’s a play Freddie would make 10 times over.’

Sheehan knew he had made a good pass but was hit on the play so he will have to wait until the next film session to see what actually happened.

‘I threw the ball and got hit. I didn’t see what happened,’ Sheehan said. ‘I didn’t see where it hit him ‘hellip; There was nothing I could do. That was an all-out blitz by them.’

Ohio linebacker Lee Renfro, who was close to the play, said the team lucked out.

‘[We] just got a little grace from the Lord on that last play,’ Renfro said.

Back it up

Of all the long plays Ohio University made during the game, one of them, a 68-yard pass to receiver Terrence McCrae, turned into a loss of yards.

With about two minutes left in the game, quarterback Theo Scott uncorked a deep pass that McCrae ran in for a touchdown, but an ineligible downfield receiver penalty brought the play back and eventually set up the BG drive discussed above.

McCrae had caught a 40-yard reception earlier in the game.

Moving up again

With a career high 390 passing yards, Sheehan moved up yet another school record list. Needing 373 yards to pass Josh Harris (2000-03) for second place on the University’s all-time passing yards list, Sheehan did so on a pass to Adrian Hodges late in the fourth quarter.

Sheehan now has 7,521 passing yards in his BG career, needing 2,760 more on the season to pass Brian McClure (1982-85) for first all-time.

That’s fairly unlikely though, as Sheehan would need to average 394.3 yards per game the rest of the season to catch McClure.

Hutson hurt

Another Falcon receiver was injured during Saturday’s game. This time it was Ray Hutson.

Hutson caught a touchdown late in the first half, but was taken out of the game with about six minutes left in the third quarter after he was hit hard by a defender during a play.

Clawson said the sophomore had been fighting nagging pains for a few weeks.

‘He’s been playing with a lot of courage the last two weeks. He’s been pretty banged up,’ Clawson said. ‘He tried to show up game day for us, but he’s been hurting for three weeks now.”