2020-2021 comparison: Football
So, the question I think has been answered...the team was better in 2021 than 2020. Also, that's a low bar, but it is better. How much better? Let's compare....starting with the offense.
Look, this whole exercise is a measure of how far we had to go at the end of 2020. BG more than doubled its points per game (MAC games only) and only moved up to #11 in the conference. That's a wow. As bad as the offense was (more often than not) in 2021, it was twice as good as the year before and still far away from where we would need to be.
It's interesting...I doubt if too many teams score twice as many points while their yards per play got worse. But that's what happened. I think you can see why. BG had a decent running game in 2020....and a much worse one in 2021. BG was decent in 2020 on sacks, much worse in 2021. Those are both artifacts of BG's losses on the offensive line. I suspect that also impacted the pass efficiency, which increased by a ridiculous amount and was still last in the MAC.
BG did some things better. They were better on third down and in the red zone and took better care of the ball and actually had a positive turnover margin.
Which helps account for the modest increase in offensive production. I have already said that we need immediate help on the offensive line, continued upgrades at WR and a QB who can pressure McDonald when his hand is broken. We can see why right here. The promise from Loeffler is if we can get the line picked up and run the ball, than we will be able to pass the ball and we will see an offense that is capable of scoring in the top 4 in the MAC, something we need to compete in the MAC, for which, in Coach's words,"it's time."
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I wonder how much of the 2020 production was garnered in the latter stages of blowout games and may have been artificially inflated, specifically the rushing yards. With that perspective the improvement might be even more substantial. Thanks for the breakdown.
Interesting point....
I don't think Loeffler is going to be successful here. He has done noting but point fingers and make excuses since he got here. Unfortunately...we're stuck with him for at least one more year
I don't agree he has done nothing, but in general I hope you are wrong.
It's called acknowledging reality. He's repeatedly critiqued himself in post game press conferences. It's tough making a non-competitive program competitive but he did it in 3 years. Kent and NIU were 1 possession games. Next year is bowl eligibility.
To Ryan's point: I think next year is when Bowling Green needs to become competitive. I think we fell a bit short of that this year. We showed signs of competitiveness, but it was inconsistent.
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