Sweet Victory #2: The offense

It was the offense's day.  Most of our team's biggest question marks were on offense...the only thing missing last year was consistent offensive production and the game at Tulsa didn't show too much more than that.

That certainly changed out there today.  Yardage-wise, BG had its best day in the Clawson era...the previous best was against I-AA Morgan State.  This was a game in our conference.

It all started with the QB...though there were plenty of contributors.

Coming into the week, Coach was talking about Johnson and Schilz being roughly equal in practice.  Johnson made his first career start...yeah, there's no debate anymore.  He had a really good day at Kent, carrying the team while the defense struggled in the first half.  He moved around in the pocket, made plays running, stayed cool under pressure and made very accurate throws almost every time.  He made 0 turnovers.

For the game he was 19 of 25 and at least 2 of the six incompletions were drops on easy catches.  He had 357 yards passing, which is 14.3 yards per attempt and 18.8 yards per reception, both of which are mind boggling numbers.  He had a 17 yard run for a first down...he was almost perfect.  And it was his first start.

There is no doubt anymore.  We can't expect a game like that every week but he is the starting QB for this team.  He's the guy.

It wasn't all him, of course.  He was helped greatly by the running game.  Travis Greene was also very effective, with 145 yards on 26 carries, a cool 6 yard per carry average.  Andre Givens also produced some yardage, as did Coppet during garbage time.

Greene is a very good running back.  He is smallish, but he moves the pile, he find seams, he keeps his feets moving and he makes people miss.  He also had a very good day today.

And then there's Shaun Joplin.  Joplin can be incredibly effective and then there are times he seems to never be open.  Today was not one of those days.  He had 6 catches for 113 yards....including a couple of very big plays, especially keeping a drive alive with a big grab on 3rd and 12.

There were others...Ryan Burbrink had 101 yards on 2 catches.  Jared Cohen had his first TD.  Tyler Beck had a big catch and run.

And none of it happens without the guys up front, who opened holes for the running game and most times gave Johnson time to throw--even while dealing with Roosevelt Nix, who is an absolute beast.

It was the most yards during Clawson's tenure at BG.  BG had 26 first downs and 8.1 yards per play.  BG was 6-6 in the red zone (perfect on the year) with 5.7 points per trip.  BG was 6 of 12 on 3rd down and 36 minutes of possession.

It wasn't an incremental improvement.  It was like watching a different team from last week and last year.  And it was good.  Good.