2009 Week 12

BUFFALO (AP) - An injured Achilles' tendon never tickles, but the pain was amplified ten-fold for Aeric Clay on Nov. 19, 2009 at Buffalo.

Clay, who was starting at fullback because of an injury to Brandon Downs, will miss the regular-season finale at Central Michigan with a strained Achilles injury.

But that's the least of his worries.

Clay is wearing the goat horns today after losing a fumble at Buffalo's 3-yard line with 30 seconds left, allowing the lowly Bulls to escape with a 23-17 victory over Eastern Michigan.

The Hurons played from behind all day after Buffalo took a 21-7 lead in the second quarter, but appeared primed to leave town with a victory.

They took over at their own 40-yard line with 2:16 left in the game, staying alive with a 12-yard scramble by Wallace Stone on third-and-10 and a 5-yard run by Clay on fourth-and-two.

Clay got the call again on fourth down with only one yard to go from the Buffalo 4-yard line. Clay got past the first-down marker, but was sent flying by Buffalo strong safety Mike Newton and coughed up the ball. Middle linebacker Tom Drewes recovered the loose ball at the 3-yard line with 30 seconds left. On the play, Clay injured his Achilles.

"Aeric is a former halfback," B-Dawg said. "I expect him to have better hands than that. If he wasn't already injured, I'd bench him next week. He cost us this game, plain and simple. You can't tell me that Wallace Stone wouldn't have found a way to score from the 3-yard line with 30 seconds, a new set of downs and one timeout left."

Clay wasn't the only Huron to blame for this loss. Center Karl Moss' holding penalty negated a 29-yard touchdown run by Greg White with 7:54 left in the game. The Hurons didn't score after the penalty drove them back to Buffalo's 40-yard line. White lost a fumble later in the quarter.

Earlier, receiver Dontayo Gage was benched after dropping two big passes and kicker Sean Dutcher missed a 29-yard field goal.

"It was a disaster all the way around, yet we still could have won this game," B-Dawg said. "It's not often that I can say with assurance that we have more talent than our opponent, but I can in this case. We were our own worst enemy."

This game was dripping in irony, as Stone had one of his worst rushing games, but his best passing performance. Stone was 20-for-35 for 255 yards, one touchdown and no picks. He ran nine times for only 36 yards and no scores. He was benched in the previous game after throwing three picks by the midway point of the second quarter.

The punting game killed Eastern twice. Buffalo's Skyler Hagg returned a punt 52 yards to open the scoring with 1:13 left in the first quarter. Then, on fourth-and-five from Eastern's 44-yard line, Buffalo ran a highly predictable fake punt, snapping the ball to upman Brandon Thermilus. Thermilus broke off a 25-yard gain in which Eastern's defenders seemed to be running away from him, setting up a 2-yard run by James Starks two plays later.

"If you look at the film, you will see how horrible defensive pursuit is in NCAA '08," B-Dawg said. "We had guys content to run parallel with Thermilus rather than taking the angle and tackling him. It's my fault that play happened, though. You can bet the ranch that in a fourth-and-five type of situation between the 40- and 50-yard lines that the CPU will run a fake. It happens almost every time. I almost called a regular defensive set, but then I held out hope for a return, which was silly. Live and learn."

By halftime, Buffalo had a 23-14 lead and a 275-163 edge in total offense. Starks had 99 yards on 12 carries and 56 yards on four catches, breaking seven tackles.

EMU's defense was dominant in the second half, keeping the Bulls (3-8) off the board and limiting them to a mere 25 yards of total offense. Starks had only 20 yards on nine carries and one 4-yard catch after halftime.

The only scoring of the second half came on a 46-yard field goal by Dutcher with 1:28 left in the third quarter.

At 5-2 in the MAC West, EMU needs some help to reach the conference championship game. Northern Illinois is 6-1 in the MAC with one game left against Western Michigan. If EMU beats Central Michigan and NIU loses to Western, the Hurons will play for the title because of their head-to-head victory over the Huskies.