Military Bowl Benchmarks

Here's the Military Bowl report, based on the statistical benchmarks that we track throughout the season.

First, BG's offense didn't do everything poorly.  They were decent (if not great) on 3rd down, took care of the ball well (in the big picture) and had a nice redzone average.  Yet, the two red zone misses in the first half were very costly...it was that kind of game, the offense had to make every play, it seems, and they made far less.

The yardage numbers are less kind.  BG ended up with decent running numbers thanks to the Pettigrew run but the passing game was anemic.

BG made a first down on only 18% of its plays, whereas the average team in a MAC conference game last season made 29%. In a related note, BG had 28% of its plays be 3rd down plays, also a situation where you are not getting offensive production.

For the defense, the running defense was successful, obviously, and even if you take away those gifts on the reverse, it was good, though not quite as gaudy.  And, note, that the reverses are not pure gifts. They were trying reverses (a risky play) because they couldn't get anything going the regular way.

Anyway, the passing is another story.  When you get 8.8 yards per pass attempt with sacks counting against passing, that's just very good.  The yards per reception, as it turns out, was good but not great, and the completion percentage was very good--which of course plays into the average per attempt.

BG's defense excelled on 3rd down, which probably kept us in the game.  The Spartans did well in the red zone, however.

Each team made one costly turnover.

Anyway, I think the graphic tells a pretty solid story.  BG did not get the offensive production it needed to win, and as well as our defense played, we didn't have the ability to keep them contained for the full 60 minutes.