Falcons Win: More....

So, a few elements to the game.  We have already covered the idea that BG should have put this game away multiple times.  They did not and UB ended up accepting the gift.

On offense, BG did what they said they were going to do.  They ran the ball 67 times and passed it 21 times.  And, it worked.  Coppet had 160 yards on 20 carries, Cleveland 109 yards on 16 carries and Wilson 107 on 25 carries, so that's 8, 6.8 and 4.3 yards per carry, respectively.

Conversely, UB ran the ball 27 times for 117 yards as a team.  They had 38 of those on one play.  BG did what they wanted to do both ways, which was control the running game.

The passing comparison was less attractive.  Morgan was 12 of 21 for 146 yards, which is certainly not great.  He was sacked twice and Knapke was sacked once in his honorary start for Senior Day.  He did not turn the ball over, however, and BG had 10 passing first downs on 12 completions, which is pretty good.

UB on the other hand, had a lot of success passing, in short bursts that look good.   Grant Rohach started for UB and while he struggled for much of the game, he ended up 20 of 35 for 334, which is 16.7 per completion, which is just an awful thing to see for a defense.  Marcus Milton and Robert Jackson did not play, so BG was playing short on an already short hand.

When BG got pressure, they had a shot.  They sacked Rohach 6 times for 50 yards and got a lot of pressure on him other times, including on the game's final play.  I liked the look.  BG got pressure with 3 at least once, Terrance Bush made a big open field sack and BG did a nice job of keeping in rush lanes to contain Rohach in the pocket, because he was willing to go out and run.

Trent Greene has 2 sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in his last game and Terrance Bush 1.5 sacks in his last game.

In the end, UB ended up with 5.9 yards per play and BG had 5.6 yards per play.  However, the Falcons ran 88 plays and was surprisingly 8 of 15 on 3rd down (basically, only failed inside the UB 35) and had 35 minutes of possession.  Schweiterman had a sack, as did Shannon Smith and Konowalski had a half sack.  Nate Locke was very active, with a hurry, a TFL and a pass break up.    Those guys are all slated to return.

On special teams, Buffalo missed 2 XP, which did have an impact on the game and would have made a difference on the last drive. BG had a couple good returns...Zimmerman had a good punt return and kickoff return and Watson had a nice PR to set up good field position.  Zimmerman nearly fumbled away a punt on a play that he was injured on--he was OK last time I heard, thankfully.

Anyway, that's how the last game shook out.  We'll have more to come moving forward.