25 questions at ramming speed

What is their body of work?

They are struggling.  They have 10 straight losing seasons and are 0-3 this year and been outscored 104-23.

How many seniors and juniors on the two-deep?

23, which is not a ton.

Who are their statistical leaders?

They have no one ranked in the national statistics and no player in the top 5 in their conference.

What is their turnover ratio?

They are -1 so far this year.

Offense:

Not the mascot.

How is their QB Play?

Their offense has plainly struggled.  Their QB is 79th in FCS (out of 121 teams) in passing efficiency.  He completes a nice percentage, but with only a 2/2 TD/INT ratio and not a lot of yards, his efficiency number suffers.

What is their scoring and yards per play?

They are last in FCS in scoring.  At 3.82 yards per play, only 3 FCS teams are lower.

Can they run the ball?

They haven't shown it yet if they can.  Their QB is their leading rusher even when you count sacks.  Beyond him, their leading rusher is earning 2.4 yards/carry.  They are 119th in FCS.

Do they pass the ball?

See above.

How is their run/pass balance?

They run the ball on 45% of their plays, which is a lot given how tough it is for them.

Do they convert on 3rd Down?

At 19% they are last in the FCS.

Do they score in the red zone?

They have only 4 red zone drives this season, with 3 FGs to show for it.  That is 2.25 points per trip.

The State Bird.  Really.

Do they protect the quarterback?

They are sacked on 6% of their pass plays, which is not very good but not awful.

I don't want to beat on these guys but they might be the worst performing offensive team to enter the Doyt in years.

Defense:

Topline: Scoring and yards per play.

They are 92nd in scoring defense in FCS and 109th in yards allowed.  They are allowing 6.23 yards per play.

Do they defend the run effectively?

They are 98th in rusing defense allowing 4.9 yards per play.

Can they be passed on?

They are 92nd in pass defense, allowing over 60% pass completions and about 13 yards per completion.

Do they get off the field on 3rd down?

They are allowing 52.8% on 3rd down conversions.

Do they defend in the red zone?

Roger Williams, who founded
Rhode Island and later returned
kicks for BG.

They have allowed 12 red zone trips in 3 games with no stops.  8 TDS and 4 FGs=5.7 points per trip.

Do they pressure the QB?

3 sacks in 98 attempts.

Special Teams:

Punting?

They are 36th in net punting with just under 40 yards per punt.

Punt Return?

They have zero punt returns in 3 games.

Placekicking?

He's look good on our team.  He's 3-3 with a long of 29.

Kickoff?

They are pretty good.  They are allowing only about 15 yards per return.

Kickoff Return?

They are also pretty good at this, with two guys with an average over 20 yards.

Miscellaneous: Overall atmospherics and intangibles.

Look, there's no point in sugar coating this.  Based on the first 3 games, Rhode Island has failed to have any success at any part of the game, and that's with 3 FCS-level games...their numbers didn't get jacked up playing Oklahoma State or something.  And while it will reveal nothing about our team, if BG does anything but blow these guys out, we are in deep trouble.