Having covered a dominating performance from what appears to be the best defense in the MAC, we now are obliged to spend a minute or two looking at the side of the ball that struggled yesterday, and that was the offense.
Coach Clawson said in the post-game that UMass has a very good front line, but having said that, the Falcons needed better play from its line in order to move the ball. He said we did not get the play that we did in the last three weeks. The line of scrimmage wasn't being moved and UMass players were getting penetration.
When that happens...when BG cannot move the ball on the ground, one thing becomes very clear: BG's passing game is not capable of carrying the offense. Yesterday's game sounded just like the first half of the Akron game for long stretches of time.
I know that there is nothing wrong with a 24-0 road win, and that the offense scored 17 points and that was enough to win. Having said that, UMass isn't always going to be the opponent and BG will need to play better, something Coach Clawson acknowledged as well.
BG averaged 3.9 yards per play, 2.5 yards per rush, and completed only 58% of its passes for 5.2 yards per attempt.
The long rush was 8 yards.
BG mounted one drive--a 7-play 74 yard TD drive in the second half when the Falcons amped up the tempo. Other than that, the longest drive of the game was 37 yards.
Not counting end of halves, BG had 8 drives which were five plays or less.
BG passed the ball almost 50% of the time compared to the Miami game where we only passed the 40%.
All that just to make this point. BG is going to go only as far as the running game takes it. If the defense continues to perform at this level, the pressure lessens on the offense a lot. If the running game is clicking, as it was against Miami, then BG becomes pretty hard to beat. If not, then you are betting everything on a defensive performance, because we have not seen anyway for BG to carry the offense in the air.
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