Football beats Lafayette

 Game 1 is in the books.

A win.  We'll take it.  As our guest last night, Urban Meyer, has said...we will never apologize for winning.  Lots of opportunities to get better.  But it was a solid win, never really in doubt.  We extended the lead.  It was a good start.

The season started off with a bang---for the second year in a row, BG started the season with a KO return to the house.  This year it was Cameron Pettaway going 98 yards on his first D1 touch.  His family was about ten rows in front of those, and they were appropriately joyous.

With 8:23 left in the first, BG started on their own 37, and put together a 15-play drive that ate up 9 minutes.  There were 3 converted third-downs on the drive, and BG was on the 4 for another 3rd down when Pyne was sacked, and Kleather added a FG to make it 10-0.

A key sequence started with 8 minutes left. Henderson punted LC to their own 16. The defense got a 3-and-out, and BG started on LC's 45.  BG drove to the 6, where they gave up the ball on downs. There were about 3 minutes left, and the defense got another 3 and out.  BG still has a big field position advantage, and BG drove the ball into the end zone, with Mar'Kel Porter scoring on 3rd down and :20 left in the half.

That's a big difference at the half...17 instead of 10.  LC went 3-and-out to start the second half and BG drove to the LC 38, where Kleather tacked on an incredible 56-yard FG.  (That ties Gehad Yousef for longest in school history.  Derek Shorejs kicked a 60-Yarder in '95.)

So, its 20-0.  Pretty one-sided.  At this point, LC had 3 first downs and had run 26 plays for 60 yards. On this drive, they made some adjustments, opened up the passing game, and sustained a 14-play, 75-yard drive that ate up 6 minutes and ended in a TD.  20-7.

Cam Pettaway went back to work for BG, with a 55-yard FG return.  BG made one first down and kicked a FG to make it 23-7.

We're in the 4th now and LC has one more shot.  On 4th down, they hit a deep pass down to the BG 12--a score at least makes it interesting--but it was called back for an ineligible receiver downfield. They did not convert on the new 4th down, and BG got one more FG to make it 26-7, the final.

BG played a clean game.  No turnovers and only 4 penalties.  That's good for a first game.

The special teams were really a big difference in the game.

• You have a KOR for a TD and another that sets a FG up.
• You have four FGs, one of them a bomb.
• And Henderson put them inside the 20 twice, one of them downed by Pettaway.

The offense was effective but has room to improve.  BG averaged 4.3 yards per play against an FCS opponent.  While LC is probably a typical FCS team, they are just that...The average in MAC games last year was 5.5 yards per play.

It was our heaviest run-mix that I can recall.  BG ran the ball 42 times and passed it 20 times.  (sack adjusted). The run game was effective at times, not effective at others.  BG had 3.9 yards per rush (sack adjusted), which is not great.

We used four backs...

• Roberts, 12 for 66, 5.5
• MacMillan 14 for 45, 3.2
• Pettaway 8 for 35, 4.4
• Porter, 2 for 10, 5
• Amachree, 3 for 5, 1.7

Coach had said we would use a bunch of guys and see who establishes themselves.  Really, only Roberts stood out.  The running game at least moved the chains...BG had 12 rushing first downs.

And 4 passing first downs.  The passing game needs work.  Pyne had a good completion percentage (12 of 18), but it was only for 109 yards plus two sacks, giving BG a sack-adjusted 100 yards on 20 attempts, for 5 yards per passing attempt.

No Falcon caught more than 2 passes.  One of our question mark areas is at WR, and it didn't seem to me that our guys were getting open.  This was a problem last year, too.

However, the line was supposed to be a strength.  And it seemed to me that Pyne was under pressure a lot.   PFF had him under pressure on 41% of his drop-backs... Last year, Bazelak was only pressured on 27% of his drop-backs.  

He was graded almost the same whether he was under pressure or not, though, and only graded out at 44 for the game.  That's lower than Bazelak was in any game last year.

Last thing on the offense, which is snap counts on the line:

LT Fatusaki 61

LG Burns 47, Sanchez 16

C Padgett 61

RG Kilfoyl 42 Pabst 19

RT Pabst 42, Thomas 21

Sanchez transferred from Northern Arizona to TN State and then to BG.  Thomas started at BG.

Usually, teams don't mix and match on the oline this much.  I think they were looking to find combinations that work, which as John Gibson said after the game, is worrisome.  Especially as we thought we were pretty solid on the oline.

BG had a dominating game on defense.  They held LC to 3.1 yards per play and 2.3 yards per rush, adjusted.  DeNobile was 13 of 28 passing for 90 yards, which was 3.2 yards per passing attempt.

Those show up in all the defensive numbers...Pringle, Lampron, Cannon, Afogho and McClendon all had effective games.

So, a solid win.  Never in doubt.  Lots of opportunity to get better as the competition gets tougher.  You know the old saying...your biggest improvement is from game 1 to game 2.  That would be great!