It was a foreshadowing act for a coming storm when senior kick return-man Taylor Wagner fumbled the opening kickoff. He was hit hard on the play, then Wittenberg University didn't stop piling up the points.
The home-team Wittenberg Tigers took just 18 seconds to score its first touchdown of the game and scored on the next four subsequent drives to put up 42 points in the first half of Saturday evening's football game against the DePauw Tigers. Wittenberg improved to 2-0 after a 52-14 thrashing of DePauw in the Old Gold's first NCAC game in school history.
"I think it was just a lot of bad things happening," interim head coach Scott Srnka said Monday. "We did a lot of good things in those Wittenberg drives, and we had opportunities to get off the field. We had one guy make a mistake then get a completion, or we had a missed tackle which would have gotten us off the field."
At the end of the first quarter, Wittenberg put up 21 points while DePauw couldn't muster any. However, in the second quarter, DePauw's offense found some life.
In the Old Gold's fourth offensive drive of the game, sophomore quarterback Drew Seaman lead his team down the field, orchestrating a 13-play, 80-yard march ending in a 13-yard touchdown pass to junior tight end Kevin Ude.
However, Wittenberg responded with a 55-yard drive of its own and pushed its lead to 28-7. Another 80-yard drive from Wittenberg seemingly created an insurmountable lead over DePauw, but senior linebacker Cody Crook forced a Wittenberg fumble, and Seaman made a five-play, 36-yard drive for DePauw's second touchdown of the game.
"Drew did an outstanding job," Srnka said. "Offensively we moved the ball, and we scored on a darn good defense. What's good about our offense is they are starting to gel."
The offense in the first half did not carry over into the second as DePauw failed to score points in the entire second half.
"What we've got to do is put together both sides," Srnka said. "We have to be solid on both sides, and when we get there, we'll be where we want to be."
Seaman was 18-37 on the night and threw for a career-high 167 yards. Senior tight end Bobby Coburn hauled in five catches for 47 yards. For Wittenberg, quarterback Reed Florence threw for 336 yards and was 17-20 on passing with four touchdowns.
DePauw travels to Carnegie Mellon University (3-0) on Saturday.