Sweet Victory: The Offense/Special Teams

So, now we move the review to the offense.

The offense was certainly far from dominant.  It was, however, good enough to win...scoring the needed points and making enough first downs in the second half to keep the Rockets from having time to mount a comeback.

To start with, BG ran for 240 yards on 41 carries....that's 5.9 per rush and the best we have seen in this program in some time.  I think everyone is now acknowledging why that is...the change in QB has opened up the QB run and therefore created additional room for the backs.  We saw this trend start at Notre Dame once Loy came in and got a real sense of it Saturday against the Rockets.

That 5.9 per rush, by the way, is without Andrew Clair, who remains out with a foot injury.

Beyond that, Loy completed 14 of 21 passes for 13.2 per completion, both of which are good numbers for him.  He threw one pick but was only sacked once...of course, that's two negative pass plays in 22 attempts. He's still struggling with flat passes, but if they can get him to improve his touch there, he'd be even more serviceable.

Perhaps most importantly, 6 of his 14 completions were for first downs.

And I think that's a good description of our offense.  Loy had two big runs and the big pass play to Bryson Denley.  Those three plays were 166 yards of BG's 425 yards of total offense.  That's especially important, though, when you're not necessarily going to be able to make long drives.

BG made 43% of its 3rd down attempts, which is really good and was key to the win.  One of the key elements to this was keeping the offense ON THE FIELD...BG won the time of possession game (by just a little).

BG outgained UT and beat them on a per play basis as well.  

Individually, besides Loy, Bryson Denley had a big game.  He had 6 catches for 100 yards and a score...and a key first down at the start of the 4th quarter running the ball.

Most of the carries went to Davon Jones, who had a hard time getting things rolling.

Coach said after the game that the team has a long way to go, and that would include the offense.  Having said that, BG's offense was good enough to combine with the defense to create a historic win.

Last thing...BG clearly won the special teams battle.  BG made 2 FGs, while blocking a punt and a FG.  UT also missed a FG and had two badly mis-managed kickoff returns that caused them to start at their one yard line.  In fact, I think you would conclude that lousy special teams play was the biggest hurdle the Rockets had to overcome in the game.

So that's it...perhaps the biggest upset in the history of the BG-Toledo rivalry and a game that ended a nine-game winning streak in the game when a win was absolutely least likely.  

We'll see if it is a turning point.  Coach said that there are no excuses for his team anymore.  They know what they are capable of.  The Falcons still have a great deal of improvement to do.  The most frustrating thing about the Jinks years was that the team never got better.  You don't mind a crappy start but you hope to get better as the season progresses, especially with a young team.  BG has 7 games left, and it would provide tremendous momentum heading into the off-season to be competitive in the last part of the year.

That will start Saturday at home against CMU, one of the surprise teams of the MAC.