They knew it was coming and they still couldn't stop it.
The No. 13 Massachusetts football team allowed 296 rushing yards on 63 attempts in Saturday's 21-20 loss to Maine.
The Black Bears found what worked and stuck to it, over and over again. Using an array of running backs and even their quarterback Michael Brusko, Maine ate up the clock, keeping Liam Coen and the Minutemen offense off the field for a great majority of the game.
Maine's offense was racking up yards on the field for 40 minutes, 8 seconds. The fourth quarter was completely dominating for the Black Bears, as they controlled the ball for 12:28. The Minutemen (6-4, 3-3 Colonial Athletic Association) handled the ball for only 2:32.
"When they had the ball for that long, I just felt like that kind of killed the game," UMass cornerback Jeromy Miles said.
Miles led both teams with 19 tackles. Miles played up near the linebackers for a good portion of the game in an attempt to try and slow down the Maine running game.
Tailbacks Derek Session, Pushaun Brown, Jared Turcotte and Jhamal Fluellen led the Black Bears to victory.
The Maine running backs consistently made the UMass tacklers miss, breaking tackles frequently. The company of tailbacks juked, sprinted and fought their way through a flurry of UMass defenders. All of them, with the exception of the quarterback, averaged more than 4.5 yards per carry on the day.
Turcotte led the Black Bears (7-3, 4-2 CAA) with 84 yards and a touchdown on 13 rushing attempts. Session gained 76 yards on 16 carries and tallied a score. Fluellen rushed for 74 yards on 10 carries and scored one touchdown. Brown averaged 8.7 yards per carry. Brown rushed only six times, but for 52 yards.
Brusko rushed 14 times for 31 yards, usually on designed quarterback draws and others on scrambles when the quarterback was pressured.
Usually a team uses the run to set up play actions and passing plays, but that wasn't the case until the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. Brusko only passed seven times completing five attempts, but was on target to his receivers Kenneth Fersner, Landis Williams and Turcotte when it mattered.
With the game tied at 14, Brusko used the play action to help move the Black Bears down the field in the fourth quarter, leading them to their only second half score - a three yard touchdown run by Turcotte.
"He [Brusko] made a couple of big pass plays," UMass coach Don Brown said. "I thought we were all over it, so you have to give credit to him."
Despite the difference in time of possession the Minutemen played much better in the second half. UMass adjusted to the wide variety of packages the Black Bears used, slowed down the run and gave the offense a chance to gain the lead.
"I thought we did a good job of that in the second half," Brown said of his team's adjustments. "We gave ourselves a chance, and that's all you can ask. We had a chance to move [the ball] and to get it done, but we didn't. That's that."
Ryan Fleming can be reached at rfleming@dailycollegian.com.
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