Sadness accrues.
Looking back, you can see the trend. You lose at home to ODU...nearly lose at Akron...and come in against a team that is a legit title contender and you play similar to how you did against ODU and Akron and it's an extremely disappointing loss. As our commenters have noted...it was a referendum on the current regime. As I said, it was the moment of truth. Mike Jinks ain't walking through that door. And we saw what we saw.
Coach summed it up after the game. I thought it was a pretty good presser. He didn't mention Notre Dame. He said we got beat up front on offense. And that was exactly what happened. This year's offense was supposed to be built on a good QB, a great TE, a great RB, and a competent line. But without that last one, there's nothing. Coach said that he would look at his play sheet and see nothing he could call because we couldn't block. Gibby talked about us getting beat up the middle, not even getting a hand on guys. A missed block on the screen that cost Johnson a key fourth down conversion in NIU territory late in the game. (I went back and watched this play again...with a block, that's probably a touchdown. And he was definitely short).
For example. NIU got the ball first and drove for a FG. BG got the ball and went 75 yards and 5 plays for a TD. From that point forward, almost a whole game, BG ran 51 plays for 130 yards. Take out the fake punt, and we ran 50 plays for 107 yards.
Let's take a case in point. BG is up 7-6 at halftime and gets the ball to start the 3rd. Bazelak was injured in the second quarter and can barely move. Loeffler says he saw the injury (leg) and said "it wasn't pretty." Bazelak is a gamer, though, and he wanted to be on the field.
BG commits two penalties, one accepted, and makes 1 yard otherwise and is punting on 4 and 14 when Henderson ran his fake punt for a first down. BG picks up the pace a little. From the NIU 19, they run a play to Stewart that is BLOWN UP. He's fighting with an 8-yard loss and BG catches a huge break when someone grabs his face mask long after the play's result was decided.
BG to the 9. Patterson runs it to the 2.
This is a huge opportunity. And what follows is a defining moment of where we are.
This is not all on our players. Our playcallers...I don't know. I was hoping last year we'd bring a real OC, but we didn't. Anyway, we tried Fannin in a wildcat and he got nowhere. On third down, we dropped the nearly lame Bazelak back to pass, turned a rusher loose in the middle and took a sack.
It's not done. Jackson Kleather, our first kicker, seriously injured himself when missing a first-half FG. Zach Long comes in. He makes the FG. Unfortunately, according to the coach, we had a guy who was a starter who didn't go out to get in the formation for the FG, so they sent another guy out who didn't line up right and we had an illegal formation. Forced to try the FG again, we missed. From the 2-yard line, catching two huge breaks, we get no points and a QB who can't move.
Sadness Accrues.
Bazelak came out to start the next series. Stewart went for 10 but it was called back for an illegal formation. That was the last we would see of Bazelak. (Coach said we should see him back soon, but it's not clear if that means for next week and we won't know that until Saturday afternoon, probably).
NIU, by the way, played without their starting QB for most of the game.
The defense held NIU well. The rush defense was effective. NIU is an RPO team, not really a drop back team. They scored on the first play of the 4th quarter on a QB run, lined up to go for 2 in a gadget formation that had us looking completely confused and they scored the 2 to make it 14-7.
BG gets the ball back and runs on 3rd and 10, makes 5 yards and has to punt. They catch another huge break when NIU is calling for leaping. Then, two plays later, NIU is called for PI.
From the NIU 40, BG goes incomplete, Stewart gains 8 on the next two plays and its 4th and 2. BG goes to Jamal Johnson...right play call, we miss a downfield block and he is brought down short of the marker. Was set up for a big play.
NIU then eats almost six minutes up before kicking a FG to make it 17-7 and that's all she wrote.
A few notes. Anderson had a rough day. It was a tough assignment. Coach says they like him in the option, but we were behind. (Teams do run the option when they are behind, FWIW). He really struggled. This was a tough assignment for your first meaningful snaps, and in all fairness, it was going to hell while Bazelak was still in there. For those of you (you know who you are) who thought Anderson was a miracle in waiting, there you go. Bazelak is the starter for a reason and it doesn't matter who the QB is if you can't protect him.
Bazelak dropped back 19 times and was pressured six times and sacked 5. Not one of the pressures was on a blitz. They were beating us with base. (Why blitz?). He was 1 of 6 when pressured.
Stewart had 64 yards on 13 rushes, almost half on one play.
BG was 9 of 25 rushing between the guards, per PFF.
As for the line, we know Nick Reimer missed another game. BG did no rotating. L-R, it was Pabst, Burns, Padgett, Fatusaki and Wollschlager. Based on PFF, three of these guys graded under 52% on run blocking. On pass blocking, one of them graded 25% and one was 40%, both in the middle of the line, as observed.
BG was 10 of 23 passing for 98 yards.
Fannin touched the ball 5 times. RJ Garcia was not on the injury list but did not play.
The defense was solid. NIU had their backup QB in. Also, Antarrio Brown, their top back, did not play. Gavin Williams had 102 yards but it took him 29 carries. Overall, they rushed for 3.3 yards per rush and gained 3.8 per play. We held them to 6 of 17 on 3rd down and on 3 red zone trips they only had 2 FGs.
That includes when the offense gave them the ball deep in Falcon territory. Bazelak was back to pass, Coach said he had a wide-open play, and a NIU DL pushed our left tackle directly into Bazelak's lap, causing a fumble recovery by NIU.
Eventually, the D ran out of gas but they took care of their part of the business.
Mostly, in this regime, it has been the offense that has let the effort down. Two missed FGs was a killer, for sure. But you got a fake punt, too and a blocked FG/bad snap.
There's no effective depth at QB--how often has that happened, as we watched Matt McDonald play injured because there was no one else. After all this, we didn't have a line capable of handing NIU's line. And we haven't recruited enough WRs, who had 3 catches yesterday.
This is where we are. Year 6. Coach's contract has one more year after this year, which really makes this year a decision year. You either need to extend him or let him go.
Look, the season isn't over. UB is in a strong position, and UB, OU and WMU all have 0 losses. Six teams are 1-1 in the MAC. But this isn't last year, where the second half of our schedule was a joke. And the trend of the last 3 games would have to reverse itself, starting with next week.
At 2-4, the far more likely scenario is that we lose 3 more times and are not even bowl eligible. With a team with 32 seniors. (Remember: we need to get OLD).
Sadness accrues.
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