Benchmarks, UB Edition

So, somewhat belatedly, here are the benchmarks for the Buffalo game.

A few notes:

Counting sacks, Buffalo tried 38 passes and was sacked on 7 of them, with is almost 20% and is 3x the MAC average.  This is pretty dominating.

From BG's perspective, however, throwing 3 picks on only 30 passing attempts is not good.  Note that BG was not sacked.

Neither team ran the ball well, but Buffalo's yardage without sacks was decent.  The differene was that they had a very unproductive passing game as well.  BG's passing game was relatively efficient.  It is rare to complete 60% of your passes and have over 12 yards per reception.

BG's kickoff coverage didn't end up too bad, though there were some bad examples early on.

Another big key was 3rd down.  BG was at 44% (average) and Buffalo was only at 13%.  The ability to close out on 3rd down is defining for a defense.

This was that rare game when BG won despite losing the turnover battle, and that is 100% attributable to the defense.