Falcons Embarrassing at Homecoming

"The one thing I can assure you is the people that are in there, we are going to have a really good game plan for and I can promise you they will play their tails off."

Scot Loeffler, Monday

“First half was the ugliest half I’ve ever seen in coaching... I asked our team to play super hard and to make sure we played super hard between the whistles, and we were poor outside of the whistles. That is not how football should be played...We are going to watch this tape and throw up."

Scot Loeffler, Saturday

Ooof.  It was a low point Saturday.  It started out glorious.  Beautiful day.  Nice crowd.  People fired up.

Sadly, when the team came out of the locker room in the 2nd half, they could look out and literally watch 75% of the people who had stayed to see the band (totally worth it, by the way) streaming for the exits.

Certainly, the first half had a lot of misfortune.  Balls slipping out of hands. Deflected touchdowns. Just weird plays, for sure.  Also, at halftime, OU also had 6.8 yards per play and over 10 in the first quarter. BG had 3.65 yards per play and 8 yards on 13 plays in the 2nd quarter.

There was misfortune and then also just getting beat.

A good example was when BG got a big special teams play and the ball deep in OU territory.  Game was over at 31-0, but there we were.  BG had two false starts and a sack and turned the ball over on downs.

OU is good.  They are a division championship team.  That's how good we need to get.  The head-head results speak for themselves.

And then we lost our composure.  Three ejections, one on targeting.  A melee where we got 3 or 4 penalties and OU got one.  A disappointing lack of discipline. 

It's one thing to play like crap.  It's another to embarrass the program like we did.

Here is a sad record.  In 4+ seasons under this coach, we have lost MAC games by 24+ or more 17 times. Five were in the COVID year, so 12 times in 3+ seasons if you prefer.  Or, 7 times in the 2+ years since COVID, when we were supposed to be on the rebound.  There were a couple high points (UT, Minnesota) and we did win 3 in a row last year.  But you can't get smoked like that at home by a MAC opponent in front of a crowd we're hoping to get back to the stadium someday.

1. 2019 Kent 62-20
2. 2019 WMU 49-10
3. 2019 Miami 44-3
4. 2019 OU 66-24
5. 2019 UB 49-7
6. 2020 Toledo 38-3
7. 2020 Kent State 62-24
8. 2020 Buffalo 42-17
9. 2020 Ohio 52-10
10. 2020 Akron 31-3
11. 2021 EMU 55-24
12. 2021 Toledo 49-17
13. 2021 Miami 34-7
14. 2022 UB 38-7
15. 2022 Kent 40-6
16. 2022 OU 38-14
17. 2022 OU 38-7

OU, for comparison, has gone 18 MAC games in a row without losing by 20.  The last was to the Babers BG team in 2015.

You could go on and on. You are what your record says you are.  

It was ironic having the 2013 MAC Champs at yesterday's game, since that was the model we are or were using.

There's still 8 games left.  We will see what happens.  As Gibby said, we could still make a bowl, but that wasn't what it was about.  Do we want to be EMU--playing for a bowl berth every year.

2020 should have been rock bottom, you know?