Air Force Uses New Weapons

EVANSTON, Ill. —  Northwestern put a halt to quarterback Dee Dowis’ run on statistics, but Air Force had too many other guns Saturday night and the undefeated Falcons rolled to a 48-31 victory.

Dowis, who had rushed for 450 yards in two previous victories, was limited to 40 yards rushing and hit five of nine passes for 89 yards.

But one of his passes was a 44-yard touchdown to Trent Van Hulzen and he also scored on a two-yard run.

“I have a job to do and tonight they let us pitch the ball,” Dowis said. “They stopped our outside game but our running backs did a good job.”

Greg Johnson scored three touchdowns on runs of one, 32 and 18 yards on pitches from Dowis. Chris Howard added a 14-yard touchdown run.

It was 14-14 at the half, so Air Force (3-0) came out with fullback Rodney Lewis running on first option traps in the third quarter when he gained 86 of his 98 yards rushing to set up two of Johnson’s touchdowns and field goals of 40 and 41 yards by Joe Wood.

“We came in at halftime and got it all down,” Dowis said. “They made us pitch but that’s the good thing about this (option) offense. You shut down one part, then you have to worry about two others.”

For Northwestern (0-2), Bob Christian rushed for 98 yards and scored on runs of 17 and three yards and quarterback Tim O’Brien completed 24 of 32 passes for 297 yards, including a five-yard touchdown pass to Richard Buchanan.

Air Force had a 24-17 lead late in the third quarter when O’Brien completed a 37-yard pass to Buchanan to put the Wildcats deep in Falcon territory. Two plays later at the 32-yard line, Christian had two chances to gain a yard for a first down but was stopped.