Sweet Victory #5

And there you go.  Over .500.  A third straight win...for just the third time in the post-Babers era.  As Urban once said, "one thing we will never apologize for is winning."  It was a great (and cold) night for a win.  We will take it all night long.

Notwithstanding it not being pretty.  I'd rather be not pretty and win than not pretty and lose.  

Ball State took the ball on their own 38 for their first possession of the second half.  They went on a 13-play, 8-minute scoring drive.  That's a long, short drive.  Of the 13 plays, 12 were runs, 8 by Marquez Cooper. They converted 2 3rd downs and 1 4th down.  They played very physically, between the tackles, and without big plays they bullied the Falcon line down the field to tie the game.

BG picked up the ball with about 4 left in the 3rd.  They made their way down the field highlighted by a 40-yard Orth to Fannin reception.  They got down to the 1-yard line on the last play of the quarter.  The 1-yard line.  They lost 5 of first down and 4 on second down--both on lateral runs--and then facing 4th and goal on the 10, Keith bailed the Falcons out with a catch in the flat that he put into the end zone.  BG up 21-14.

4th quarter now, Ball State came right back, driving over midfield, and then their QB Kelly ran 44 yards on the edge to tie the game back up with 9 minutes to play.

Keith made another huge play, one that set BG up to win the game.  He fielded a kickoff and waited patiently for his blocks to develop and then ripped off a 47-yard return to the Ball State 43.  With 9 to play, BG has a shot to put the game away with a short field.

It doesn't start great, but they convert a 4th and 4. They eventually get the ball to Keith again and he went 20 yards and out of bounds at the 1.  Once again, we are never in more trouble when we are on the opponent's 1. We ran the ZiggyPush for nothing. We tried a Fannin end around and lost 3.  On 3rd, Bazelak was pressured and threw the ball away.  Rather than get a TD which probably puts the game away, they settle for a FG.  24-21, 3 to play.

Ball State gets the ball and the BG defense delivers. They get stops on 3rd and 5 and 4th and 1 and start on the Ball State 29 with 1:43, BSU still have no timeouts.  

How can this be a problem?  BG needs one first down and the game is over.  Which they did not do, or close, losing 5 yards net on the 4 plays and giving Ball State the ball on their 33 with 1:20 to play.  Not bad field position, but their kicker has not gone over 40 in his career. That series, right there, is a problem.

They convert a 3rd and 7 and eventually get the ball to the BG 35. Neu said they thought they needed 5 yards, but there was only :12 left, so they had to be on the sideline.  They tried a couple tough sideline passes that their QB did not come close to converting and then lined up for a 52-yard FG which came up short.

Again, a win.  You are what your record says you are.  Which, for BG, seems to mean we are better than the worst teams in the MAC and not close to the better teams.  We're likely to go bowling but we are still pretty flawed.

The offense.  Man.  Look, it was good enough.  BG was +2 on turnovers, and scored touchdowns off both of them. One FG came off the Keith KOR.  BG had one sustained drive, which was the one that led to the first goal-line fiasco.

Ball State was determined to stop the run and pressure the QB, both of which require a bunch of people on the line of scrimmage. BG finished with 104 net yards rushing.  There were 3 sacks for 22 yards, so if you don't count those as rushes, you end up with 127 on 31 attempts, 4.1 yards per carry, which is still not great.  Take out the 44-yard Terrion Stewart TD run and you have 2.8 yards per carry, which is pretty unproductive over 29 plays.

The pass game was similarly disappointing. To be fair, Bazelak made a big-time throw to Fannin for a TD, improvising under pressure.  Also, a highly refined tip-toe catch by Fannin.  And Orth made a big throw, also under pressure, to Fannin for a 40-yard gain.  

As a team, BG was 15 of 23 for 177 yards.  That's 154 yards if you charge the sacks to the passing game. BG was sacked or hurried on 5 of its 23 passing attempts.

Here's the thing.  Teams are trying to stop the run.  BG doesn't go over the top to take advantage.  Yes, Bazelak was 13 of 21, but only 2 of those completions were over 10 yards. 4 of them were behind the line of scrimmage.  I don't know if we don't think we can protect, we aren't open, or our QBs are checking down in reaction to the above, but it makes things much harder when your whole game is 10 yards from the line and in.   Coach said our guys need to create more separation and I have to say I think that is true.  We felt good about our WRs coming into the season, but they don't seem to be getting open like we need.

When he is kept clean, Bazelak had 2.7 seconds time to throw.  Under pressure, it was 3.8 seconds per throw. Here's something.  All year, on plays when he is sacked, Bazelak only has the ball 3.1 seconds, the lowest in the MAC.  Which means he is getting sacked quickly and probably explains why we don't go deep more.

Two last things.  First, Taron Keith is a really good player who has bailed us out more than once and he did it last night.  His bail-out-to-touch ratio is incredible.

Also, Stewart has a high ankle sprain.  This is an issue.  I suspect they will go to the Travis Greene no-practice plan to see if he can be ready for the next week.  We need him. We aren't elite blockers but he is tough to stop.

The defense was not ripped, but they were pushed around.  Ball State had very high yards in the pile-push, if such a thing existed.  They ran 68 plays and 46 of them were runs. Sacks removed, they had 5.4 yards per rush, which is not bad but not dominant. To be fair, 44 of their yards came on one play, too. 

Kelly was 9 of 19, with only 1 completion over 10 yards and 0 over 20. He was 8 of 9 under 10.  He ended up with 66-yards passing.  He's young but we have seen this before, even with OU.  If you're playing that RPO style with a run-first QB, when you need big throws they aren't there.

Anyway, 4.2 yards per play overall is not good.  They had 2 turnovers but were 10 of 15 on 3rd/4th down, which was a killer.

Special teams were OK for BG. There was 1 FG, a missed long FG, a game-changing KOR and a punt that should have been blocked, except the punter held the ball until the guys flew by.

Anyway, BG goes +2 on turnovers, makes the most of it and hangs on when they don't slam the door late in the game.  A win is a win.  We are probably going bowling.  It's not bad.  It probably is out best team since 2015, but that's sure a low bar.