Maybe 2020 and the first game of 2021 were signs Toledo has rounded a corner going into head coach Jason Candle’s sixth season.
The Rockets finished 4-2 last year. The two losses came by a combined six points to Western Michigan and Ball State, the only two teams that finished ahead of them in the Mid-American West Division. Prior to the start of the 2021 season, Toledo was picked to finish second in the West behind Ball State by the media.
Perhaps the gap between those two teams isn’t as close as the 27-24 final score from last fall would suggest. Ball State took a commanding 27-9 lead over Toledo early in the fourth quarter. The Rockets battled back, though, with a pair of touchdown receptions from wide receiver Bryce Mitchell, who’s entering his senior season.
Mitchell’s two scores embodied the theme of what Toledo is trying to do at this stage in Candle’s tenure: battle back. The players have taken it upon themselves to get Toledo back to playing highly respectably in the MAC.
“When you have player-driven accountability and player-driven authenticity and player-driven goals and dreams, good things happen,” Candle said. “It’s not always a coaching staff that has to do that, and I think that’s a good thing.”
That accountability led to a 49-10 victory over Norfolk State in week one of the 2021 season. That has more resembled what Candle accomplished at the beginning of his Toledo tenure.
