MEADVILLE — First-year Slippery Rock head football coach Brendan Hathaway said he watched his team grow younger as the game went on.

The Rockets allowed Meadville more than 500 yards of offense, losing 49-14 Friday.

The loss came after SR led 7-0 at the end of the first quarter, when quarterback Ryan Currie hooked up with wide receiver Brandon Henry for a 43-yard scoring pass on fourth-and-13 with five minutes remaining in the period.

It looked for a moment that the Rockets' passing game would help ruin the Bulldogs' homecoming.

"Ryan can throw the ball," Hathaway said. "But we had to pass for a lot of the game, and they knew it."

As the Rockets (0-4, 0-3) tried to hold on, the Bulldogs decided to adjust their offense. In the first quarter, they tried to run the ball with Terrence Goodman, Zach Towers and Artrel Foster.

The Rockets' safeties were active in the run game, a strategy noticed by Meadville coach Ken Achenbach.

"Their safeties were playing up and were active in stopping the run," Achenbach said. "So we decided to try and throw the ball down the field and we ended up catching them."

Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Lloyd found Travis Jensen for a 65-yard touchdown pass with 11:10 left in the first half that turned the momentum.

The Bulldogs went on to score 28 points in the second quarter to take a 28-14 lead into halftime.

After Towers scored on a 27-yard run, Slippery Rock's Ben Gaul fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Foster helped the Bulldogs to capitalize with a 6-yard touchdown run.

Foster tortured the Rockets on both sides of the ball, running for 171 yards and scoring three touchdowns, along with picking off an interception.

"After the fumble, it put us in a situation where we had to pass and they knew it," Hathaway said. "We're not an experienced enough team to play from behind. We are a team that wants to be able to play action, and we couldn't do that."

Currie did hook up with Sam Furrh for a 60-yard pass to cut the lead to 21-14, but the Bulldogs immediately responded with a touchdown.

After halftime, the Bulldogs put the game away quickly. Foster intercepted a Currie pass at the Meadville 49-yard line and then scored on a 51-yard touchdown run on the next play. Goodrum and Foster both scored again in the fourth quarter.

The Rockets turned the ball over four times on two interceptions, two fumbles and allowed 389 rushing yards.

"The last two weeks we were in the game, and after the first quarter today, everything snowballed," Hathaway said. "We need to go back and work on the fundamentals and get better at tackling."