A few additional notes

• Jerry Phillips was the MAC East Special teams player of the week again, with three FGs and 4 xps. He was very effective against OU, and hopefully can keep up the hot streak going forward. If we do sputter in the red zone, we need to at least get 3. (Praise for touchbacks on kickoffs is a little touchy, given the Wizard-of-Oz winds that ripped through the Doyt for most of the game.
• The last time BG started 1-4 was Gary Blackney's last season (2000)
• BG had 13 plays of 20 yards or more, as opposed to 18 in the first four games. (Either our offense is just this close or OU's defense is no good/was no good.)
• Finally, I know a lot of people are ready to chalk this up to a re-building year, citing Clawson's record of second year success. I certainly hope that's true. A couple of points as it relates to re-building.
• Most teams have re-building years after good seasons. Only BG can have a re-building year off a 6-6 season. So we kinda got gypped on that one.
• And...earlier in the summer, during an Ask the AD, it was stated that we are very concerned about next season due to a hole in the recruiting program. The class that will be seniors last year has been hit hard by a wide variety of issues, but they are supposedly thin. So, when we talk about re-building, it might be a two year process.
• Two illustrate, this year's team has 16 seniors on the two-deep. There are only 9 juniors on the two-deep this year.
• Our secondary isn't as young as everyone says. There are two seniors back there, and three when Mahone was in.
• Finally, on the red zone issues. I went back and looked at the PBP for the OU game.

• BG ran 19 plays in the red zone. 11 of them were runs as seen below:

• Geter 8 for 22
• Sheehan 2 for 6 TD
• Barnes 1 for 2 TD
• Team 11 for 30, 2 TD

2 TDS is fine, and you are going to have a lower per carry average in the red zone, but this is not an inspiring figure.

• BG dropped back to pass 8 times in the red zone. There was one sack, Tyler was 2-6 for 28 yards and a TD and Barnes was o for 1.
• Now, as far as Tyler goes, he may have contributed to the sack by not getting rid of the ball, but there were three clear drops inside the red zone, so in reality, he only threw one incompletion in the red zone that wasn't a drop.

Oh yeah, those 8 passes netted 24 yards. So even less inspiring.

Total on those 19 red zone plays? 54 yards. Less than 3 per play.

Tomorrow I'll review special teams and then we'll be done with the OU game.