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37 |Thursday December 14, 2017 | OAKVILLE BEAVER |www.insidehalton.com Kevin Nagel, Oakville Beaver Sports Editor, knagel@burlingtonpost.com Sports "Connected to your Community " Nathan Rourke will lead the Ohio Bobcats in the Bahamas Bowl Dec. 22 against the University of Alabama at Birmingham. | Ohio Media Relations photo By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff When you're tasked with keep ing the enthusiasm high in a foot ball stadium week after week, you would think a record-setting quarterback would be the most celebrated person in the eyes of a school's cheerleaders. After all, Nathan Rourke made it a lot easier for Ohio football fans to get excited. He ran for 21 touchdowns, the second most among all NCAA Division I players, and passed for 15. He even caught a TD pass. His play helped the Ohio Bob cats score an average of 12.6 more points per game this season. So shouldn't Rourke be the most be loved man on campus? "I'm not as popular as you might think," the former Holy Trinity Secondary School student says. One number -- a very unofficial stat -- explains that: 1,077. That's the number of pushups Ohio's cheerleaders did this year in keeping with the tradition of doing a pushup for each point every time the Bobcats score. A video that went viral from the Bobcats' home opener showed the cheerleading squad struggling with the required 39 pushups af ter a Rourke TD pass at the end of the third quarter against Kansas. In fairness, the cheerleaders had already completed 89 during the course of the game and would log 170 by the end of Rourke's first start with the Bobcats. But there was still a world of hurt to come. There was a 196-pushup day in a 48-3 victory over Kent State and another 192 the follow ing week after Rourke ran for three TDs and threw for three more in a 45-28 win over Miami (Ohio). "Things have gone extreme ly well," said Rourke, who will lead Ohio into the Bahamas Bowl against the University of Alabama at Birmingham Dec. 22 after an 8-4 season. "Going into the non-con ference games (at the beginning of the season), I knew the other quarterback was going to start, and I would go in at some point. I just tried to prepare like I was going to start and took advantage of the op portunities I got." Preparation was one of the things that tipped off the Bobcats' coaching staff that they had a spe cial kind of player on their hands. "He's the first recruit I ever met (who) showed up with a note book," Ohio quarterbacks coach Scott Isphording told OhioBobcats. com earlier this season. "He was writing stuff down, had things he wanted to know about, all of it. I said `Alright, this is my kind of guy-'" When Rourke took his first snaps in the season opener, he led the team on a 16-play, 82-yard drive that culminated in his eight-yard touchdown run, his first of three on the day. Ohio's first five possessions with Rourke at QB resulted in four touchdowns and a field goal. But as well his debut went, the highlight of his day came before he even set foot on the field. "When I ran out of the tunnel the first time, it really hit me. It was so special," he said. "After all the places I had been, to accomplish a goal of mine; it was not the typical route to get to D1." Rourke travelled more than 4,100-kilometres to get to Ohio. After leading Holy Trinity to an OFSAA Bowl title in Grade 11, he moved to Alabama with his mom and brother Kurtis for his final year of high school. Despite setting a conference record with 59 touch down passes and leading Edgewood Academy to a state title, his offers were limited. So it was off to Fort Scott Community College in Kansas, where he finally caught the eye of the Ohio coaching staff. Rourke may have come in under the radar but he seized the starter's job by the third week. He ended up running for more yards (882) than any other Division I quarter back, trailed only Florida Atlantic running back Devin Singletary in rushing touchdowns and set Ohio's single-season touchdown record. "It was such a strange season. I hadn't scored that many touch downs before. I've always been more of a passer," said Rourke, whose 21 rushing TDs were more than the entire Bobcats team scored last season. "But we had an extremely good line and they made it easy. I don't know how many times I just walked in." He may have done so, but you don't walk in from 75 or 68 yards, as Rourke did this year. Ohio coach Frank Solich marvelled at his speed and ability to make tacklers miss. It's in the passing game that Rourke sees plenty of room for personal development. He said de fences were tougher to read than in junior college "I can be a better pocket passer," he said. "Standing in there and finding easier options." Still, he completed 54.4 per cent of his passes for 2,018 yards while throwing just seven interceptions in his first year of Division I foot ball, earning himself a place on the all-conference second team. Over all, it was a pretty good season even by the lofty standards Rourke sets for himself. "I really wanted to play and make a difference," he said. "We did a lot of great things, but I really hope to win a MAC (Mid-American Con ference) championship in the next couple of years." For now, he'll look to bring Ohio its first Bowl victory since 2012. That might earn him a bit of a reprieve, but next year he hopes there are even more pushups, no matter how unpopular that makes him.