Less than complete disaster: The Offense

So, we've covered the defense.  How did the new FalconFast offense do?

It certainly was not a great start.  Three of BG's first four drives were three and outs.  In the other, BG drove to the 11, had a 3rd and 1 and lost yards.  BG chose to pass up an easy FG and go for it (a "tone setting decision" as it turned out) and did not make the first down.

On the fifth possession, BG drove down to the 10 and again failed to move the ball in the red zone.  This time, Tate hit the upright on a 27-yard chip shot.  

So, five possessions, no points.  At this point, it was 21-0 and, as it turned out, the game was already over.  The only chance BG was ever going to have was to essentially score every time we had the ball.

The early possessions were really ugly.  The running game was getting stuffed, BG was dropping balls all over the place and then failing to convert in the red zone--a historic problem with spread offenses.  It was a very rough start.

BG did pick it up from there and I think fans got a glimpse of what this could be.  BG scored on 5 of its next 6 possessions, with 4 TDS and the longest drive being 2:37.  Receivers were open, Johnson was hitting them with the ball, they were actually catching the ball and the running game was going.  

Matt Johnson had a good game.  He was 25 of 36--add in about 5 drops and he was right on the money.  BG had 8.7 yards per attempt and 12.6 yards per catch, both very solid numbers.  Johnson was sacked 3 times, which is not going to get it done, but by and large he was very effective.

Greene got off to a slow start but finished with 91 yards on 18 carries, a 5.1 average and a good day in any book.  Fred Coppet was also very effective, with 65 yards on only 6 carries, including two big runs when BG really needed a spark.  He was injured last year, but appears to be fully recovered.

As expected, Lewis and Dieter were BG's leading receivers.  Heath Jackson also had 5 catches.  Ronnie Moore only had 2 catches, but one of them was an electrifying 41 yard TD catch/run.

BG was poor on 3rd down, at 4 of 10.  BG rarely had 3rd downs once they got rolling.

The offense clearly could have been better, but at least with the offense you could see what it could be.  Based on the defensive performance, they are going to need to fine tune their instrument.