Sweet Victory #5

Hey now, How do you like that?

BG is now tied for first in the MAC East at 4-1.  Yes, no doubt, tougher games are ahead.  But it cannot be denied...we are playing meaningful games in November for the first time in 7 years.  Compare this to what we saw in 2019-20...and things are definitely improved and moving in the right direction.  We are not there yet.  Obviously, we are not a championship team yet...and may not be....but we are where I think we hoped we would be this year.

It was an old school game.  BG won 13-9.  There were only two touchdowns scored.  Offense was in short supply, and turnovers only made it worse.

You win 13-9, you're going to talk about the defense. And you should. WMU came in 9th in the MAC in scoring and 11th in yards per play.  They had a true FR QB making his second start.  BG did what they should do with an offense like that...held them to 2 scores.

Lester said after the game that they wanted to keep the offense on the field by running the ball.  That clearly did not work, because they had 91 yards and 4 first downs at halftime.  So they adjusted and went to the air in the second half, and things did improve.  They had 227 yards in the second half.

More than half of those came to downfield completions to Corey Crooms, who had 3 long plays for 121 yards in the second half.  Gibby said Crooms plays out of the slot and they would scheme him up against a safety and that was a mismatch.  You'd like to see BG manage that.  They seemed to be leaving a lot of guys in to block (BG didn't get much pass rush in the game) and Crooms nearly cost them the game.

Having said that, WMU came in wanting to run the ball.  BG absolutely stuffed the run game and broke up enough passes and picked up 2 turnovers and made the key stop on 4-2 from the BG 19 in the game's waning moments to win the game.  WMU also bobbled a snap on a key play in the red zone.  

In the end, BG held a conference opponent to 9 points.  You're not going to win every play.  It was a very strong defensive performance.

The last time BG won with 13 or fewer points was a 2011 win over Temple.

Which brings us to the offense.  Which had its moments...both good and bad.  So, the key point is BG had only 13 points and one touchdown, and that was after Taron Keith busted a huge KOR to open the second half and BG started on the 17.

BG also started on the WMU 38 and fumbled and the WMU 25 and made 6 yards and kicked a FG. The Falcons were also heading into the end zone and fumbled when it could have been a two-score game and force WMU to be one-dimensional.

Coach Loeffler refers to these as "self-inflicting" wounds.

And that's true.  BG had chances to score and dominated field position in the first half while allowing WMU only 91 yards and finished the half with 6 points.  We finished with 1 TD and that might not have happened without the KOR.

A lot was made of WMU's great defense.  Just a little perspective, they came into the game 8th in the MAC in scoring defense, although very tough to run against. They held BG to 291 yards and 13 points...for yardage, it was their best FBS game of the year.

BG did, in fact, run the ball against them.  BG had 130 net yards, which is the most in a MAC game since their MAC opener with BSU.  And BG completed a high percentage of passes, going 23 of 31, but they were high percentage passes, at only 7 yards per completion. BG's longest pass play was 26 yards.   So a lot of completions and efficient in that way, but not efficient in gaining yards.  It was the fewest passing yards against WMU this year in an FBS game.

In fact, the difference in the game was probably special teams.

WMU had a key mistake when they lost the snap on their XP attempt and ended up with only 6 points.  Those always seem to come back to haunt you, and the Broncos would have been in FG range in the last minute when they ran that 4th down play, not going for it.

Meanwhile, BG had some impact plays.

Taron Keith set up BG's only TD with an 83-yard kick return to start the second half.  Lawler made both his FG's.  And Sami Sir was great punting the ball, especially a 52-yard punt to pin WMU on their own 10 for the final drive.  Better field position, and it could be a different story.

Last thing.  Coach mentioned that Taron Keith had gone through something unimaginable in the 24 hours before the game.  Coach said under similar circumstances, he would not have played. Keith did--for his teammates--and made what was probably the key play of the game.

Wishing him nothing but the best in in a difficult time.

BG is now 4-1 and 5-4, the best in 7 years.  The EKU loss just stings a lot.  The program is clearly getting better and has considerable room to grow.  As Coach said, we are now looking to improve off wins.  Next up is Kent, who has smoked us recently.  A win makes us bowl-eligible and keeps all of our other goals alive.