BG Stays Within 25 of the Bulls

The Falcons dropped their sixth straight game last night, losing 42-17 to Buffalo at the Doyt. On the plus side, it is the only game of the six where the final deficit was less than 35 points.

UB is really good--probably the best team in the conference--and the game was no contest from the opening whistle. There were some positive moments on offense and it was the best game BG played this season.  Which is a low bar, but we will take what we can get about now.

A few random observations:

• BG went without five of its assistant coaches.  Four of them were isolated in a contract tracing situation and one of them--Erik Campbell--was dealing with a dire family emergency.  It is possible he will not return to the team this year.
• As mentioned, the offense had its best game.  This is truly a different team with Andrew Clair on the field. He averaged 6.1 yards per carry on 14 overall attempts.  Denley had 5 per carry and Terrion Stewart had 4.7 yards per carry...although he did score both of BG's touchdowns.  In short, BG's running game was much improved and when Clair plays we just have a better shot.
• It seemed to open up the pass game.  McDonald was 17 of 27. He completed only 14 passes in BG's first two games total.  He had 219 yards, which is 13 yards per completion.  On that front, good numbers.  He did throw one pick, nearly threw another and was sacked four times.  Still, a much more complete offensive performance.
• For my money, BG had two opportunities to go for it on 4th and short in the first half and didn't take them and I felt like that was a mistake.  One led to a missed FG and another was a punt.  You're 0-2 and you lost your last five games by 35+ points and your only chance to stay in the game is to score...I'd just think you don't have anything to lose at that point.
• Anyway, that's not what we did and I suspect in the end it wouldn't have mattered that much.
• The sooner Jaret Patterson heads out of Buffalo, the better for us.  In the last two years, he's had over 600 against us in two games.  I think we had some seasons where our leading rusher had that many. (At least one.  In 2008 Anthony Turner led BG in rushing with 519 yards.)
• One thing about Lance Leipold.  If you can't stop the run, he's not going to pass.  I admire that.  How often do you see a team running the ball like crazy and then come on and throw three incompletions or even a pick and turn the game around.
• They ran the ball 48 times and passed only 14.  They averaged 8.3 yards per carry when they ran.  It was a completely dominating performance on the ground.

So the beat goes on.  There was some progress in this one, but the Falcons remain a long way from being competitive.  In fact, if you want to measure, in 3-4 years we want to be as good as UB is right now.

There's only one way out of this, and that's to stay the course.  These guys who are struggling are going to turn into players someday and I hope we can compete.  We'll remember these days.

Let''s stay behind 'em.