Benchmark Results, AKRON

So, here's the first benchmark report for the MAC season.  Just to recap, the benchmarks are MAC averages from last season (MAC games only) and the stats are the results BG got on both sides of the ball Saturday in Akron.

A few notes.

When you take sacks out, Akron was pretty effective running the ball.  Yes, that was mostly in the first half.  Still, they did get passing yards.

We talk about how ineffective our passing game was, but once you charge the sacks back against the Zip passing game, their's was actually worse than BG in most measures.  The one thing BG got that the Zips didn't was a big passing play, which obviously helps the average.

Neither team was great in the red zone, but BG held Akron to two red zone trips for the game.

Akron had a lot of yards to get 10 points.

BG ran the ball on 59% of its plays for the game, which is near the highest quarter of NCAA teams, when you exclude the military academies, etc.

Anyway, that's a pretty good portrait of how BG won.  We ran the ball effectively, made first downs on a large percentage of plays, stayed out of third down, etc.  We didn't convert 3rd down very well, but that's a story for another day.