MAC Benchmark Comparisons....

We have been tracking certain benchmark stats through the year, some of which I made up.  Before we pick through the Bowling Green season, I wanted to look at the MAC at whole because I think it presents a nice context.

First, these are MAC-games only.  When something is ADJ, it means the number has been sack adjusted--that sacks have been moved from rushing attempts and yardage calculations to passing attempts and calculations.  Doesn't make a huge difference, but it does make a difference.

The biggest one I have mentioned here before.  Interceptions in 2011 were down 47% over the year before.  Also, this is true both in raw numbers, and as a percentage of passes attempted.  In 2010, interceptions were 3.9% of pass plays, and they were 2.0% this year.  Also, sacks were down almost 11%, meaning that negative pass plays fell from 10% to 7.5%.

This was not necessarily reflect in other passing stats...for example, completion percentage was down (were passers just better at getting rid of the ball?), and yards per attempt and yards per reception increased only modestly.

Overall, per game scoring (not on chart) went from 25.1 points per game to 28.4 points per game (a 12% increase) and yards per play increased by 7.5%, so overall, the MAC had more productive offense this year, and in pretty significant numbers.  Run averages were up about 3%.

The MAC was also more effective, creating 9% more red zone trips (expected with yardage increases).  Football often boils down to red zone and 3rd down execution, and red zone scoring was up 9% and 3rd and 4th down conversions were up 5.5%.

Given that there were some very high scoring games in the MAC, this won't be too surprising to anyone.  In fact, if anything, a national observer basing their opinions on those November games might be surprised that the numbers are this LOW.

Anyway, for our purposes here as a Falcon blog, here's the important point.  When we see BG's offensive improvement from 2010 to 2011, we have to remember that our competition was getting better at the same time.  We would need increases just to stay where we were.  On defense, obviously, the reverse is true.

Blogpoll Regular Season Final....

As I predicted, bloggers like Ok St #2 rather than Alabama.  I voted for Bama (Roll Tide) but I will admit that the arguments I heard for Oklahoma State were persuasive.  It is very close, in my view.

I don't understand how Southern Miss ends up behind Houston after clocking them...and I still like MSU over Michigan, but beyond that, things are pretty consistent.

Results for Week 15

#	School	Points/blog	SD	Delta
1	LSU Tigers (60)	25.00	0.00	--
2	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	23.50	0.70	1
3	Alabama Crimson Tide	23.15	1.14	-1
4	Stanford Cardinal	21.52	1.01	--
5	Oregon Ducks	20.55	1.18	3
6	Boise St. Broncos	18.40	3.31	1
7	Arkansas Razorbacks	17.92	2.96	2
8	Wisconsin Badgers	17.92	1.78	6
9	USC Trojans	15.07	7.38	4
10	South Carolina Gamecocks	14.30	3.80	5
11	Kansas St. Wildcats	14.27	2.72	5
12	Michigan Wolverines	13.03	2.68	5
13	Michigan St. Spartans	12.57	3.56	-2
14	Baylor Bears	11.13	2.85	5
15	Clemson Tigers	10.55	3.37	6
16	TCU Horned Frogs	10.13	3.64	2
17	Georgia Bulldogs	9.90	3.93	-5
18	Virginia Tech Hokies	9.42	3.70	-13
19	Oklahoma Sooners	8.58	4.06	-9
20	Houston Cougars	6.65	4.30	-14
21	Nebraska Cornhuskers	6.17	2.31	-1
22	Southern Miss. Golden Eagles	4.87	2.26	2
23	West Virginia Mountaineers	3.45	1.96	-1
24	Penn St. Nittany Lions	2.92	2.66	-1
25	Florida St. Seminoles	0.85	1.46	--
Others Receiving Votes: Cincinnati Bearcats | Arkansas St. Red Wolves | Northern Illinois Huskies | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | Texas Longhorns | Arizona St. Sun Devils | Missouri Tigers | Auburn Tigers | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | Louisville Cardinals | Virginia Cavaliers | Tulsa Golden Hurricane | BYU Cougars | Texas A&M Aggies | California Golden Bears | Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | Ohio Bobcats
Updated: Dec 7, 2011 9:17 AM EST

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Rankings 2011

Update:  I won the consistency award for this week....here's what the blog said....

Falcon Blog adjusted two teams in its top nine, dropped no team more than seven spots, and kept the composition of its top 25 the same. That's great consistency.

In my defense, I did not have Houston and Virginia Tech in the Top 10, so I was actually ahead of the curve.  I didn't have to drop Houston 14 slots, I didn't think they were Top 10 in the first place.  Same with Virginia Tech.

New Name....Spencer Cairo

When Coach Clawson was doing his post-game presser, he mentioned a name on the offensive line that I had not heard before...Spencer Cairo.  I didn't remember him in one of our recruiting classes and in fact he was not a signed recruit.

Rather, he was a preferred walk-on, based on this Falcon Fodder (The Blade) post.  He is from Rochester, MI, where he was a highly decorated player, earning all-state honors in Division II.  No idea, but I assume being from a smaller division and being slightly shorter than optimal (he is listed at 6'2" and 293 on BG's roster) might have kept him from being a scholarship player, but he has clearly played his way into the conversation at BG, so here's what Falcon Fodder said about him in February.

Spencer Cairo, OL, Rochester, Mich., Adams High School: A 6-3, 300-pounder who was first-team All-Michigan offensive lineman in Division II. He also earned all-league and all-county honors and will play in Michigan’s East-West All-Star Game on June 25.

Quick Preview on Malone....

The Malone Pioneers head into the Stroh Center tomorrow night...just some quick education....

Malone is a "Christian liberal arts university" in Canton, OH.  They are currently an NAIA school, but will be joining the GLIAC next year and be transitioning up to DII status.  They offer 20 varsity sports.

They are 5-3 this season.  They actually won at Findlay, who was the #7 DII team at the time of the game.  It was Findlay's first home loss in 105 regular season games.  They have also lost to the #12 and #1 ranked teams in DII.

Sr. Eric Coblentz is their leading scorer at 15 points a game and So. Corey Veldhuizen is scoring 14 points a game.  Those two players are also their leading rebounders.  They shoot a lot of 3s, and don't have much size.  They have two players who are 6'7" and they only average 35 minutes between them.

Obviously, games like this are scheduled to get a home game and a win on the calendar.  Having said that, BG has certainly had some difficult games over the long reach of time against these "guaranteed win" opponents.  Let's hope tomorrow is not one of them.

Time to review predictions....

So, before the season I sat down and predicted each game for the season...now it is time to call in the chips, and see how it all worked out.

To review...here is what I said at the time.

So we will look at this a couple of ways.  First, here, in all my darkness, is my prediction for the season, with a short capsule for each game.  I'm going 5-7 and 3-5 in the MAC.


I do think we are on the right track.  However, I think that Falcons fans should have cautious expectations this year.  Having said that, I would be thrilled to be wrong.

Obviously, numerically, I was right on with both numbers.  My more qualitative description was also pretty good....we were better, but it was right to have cautious expectations.

Game by game, I was 8-4, which is pretty good.

I called the Temple upset right.  I had the Kent game right....sort of, I mean, I thought we would lose to a good Kent team not a lousy one, but, you know, we did in fact lose.  I missed the Idaho game (they were a lot worse than we thought) and the Wyoming game, and I thought we would be improved enough late in the year to beat OU, which we almost were.

Anyway, for amusement, here is my game by game summation.

9/1/2011 at Idaho   L  (WRONG)

This game appears to be winnable, but a young team on the road in a hostile environment is a tough assignment.  I think Idaho picks up the win.

9/10/2011 Morgan State   W (RIGHT, DUH)

BG wins this game against FCS team that was picked to be 6th in the MEAC.

9/17/2011 Wyoming    W (WRONG)

I like BG to win this one at home.  They are much like BG--they were 3-9 and while they are on an upward vector, they are also still building and I think BG wins.  Plus, Cowboy OC Gregg Brandon struggled in the Doyt in his last years, and he cannot get this out of his head.

 9/24/2011 * at Miami L (WRONG)

This is one I would like to think we would win.  Miami caught a lot of breaks last year in winning the title.  At the same time, they have a new coach I like a lot, and a strong defense that could be a tough matchup for us.  We almost beat them last year, so maybe we weren't that far apart, but on their home field I think Miami wins.

10/1 at West Virginia  L (Right)

Mountaineers too much.

10/8/2011 * at Western Michigan  L (Right)

Western will be a tough game.  If you are going to say that we have a shot at Miami because we almost beat them, what do you say about WMU, who torched us on our field?  Western is a strong team and we'd be very pleased if we pulled this one off.

10/15/2011 * Toledo  L (RIGHT)

I hate picking us to lose to Toledo, especially at home.  Having said that, last year's game was not close, and I don't know if we have closed the gap enough.  Certainly, if BG starts to look like they are gelling than this is an opportunity to really get up for a game and show what you can do.

10/22/2011 * Temple W (RIGHT)

BG nearly beat Temple on the road last year, and this is one I like us to pick up.  While I think Temple is a good MAC team, they may not be as good as last year, especially on defense, and I think BG can pick this win up.

10/29/2011 * at Kent State L (RIGHT)

I like Kent to win the East and defend the Dix in this game.

11/8/2011 * Northern Illinois L (RIGHT)

I think NIU is the best team in the MAC and they will be too much for the young Falcons.

11/16/2011 * Ohio  W (WRONG)

Perhaps the biggest upset, I think BG is playing better at this point. OU is also very young, and BG grinds out a win at the Doyt.  This is the game where BG shows that it is on the way back.

11/25/2011 * at Buffalo W (RIGHT)

Buffalo in November.  Nice.  Buffalo is one of two teams in the East I have picked behind BG so I like the Falcons to pick up a frozen road win.

Bowl matchups get thumbs up here

I'm pretty happy with the MAC's bowl assignments...it stands to be the MAC's best year in a long line of noncompetitive bowl seasons.

I like a few things:

• 5 teams ties the record (only Ball State was bowl eligible and stays home)
• Only one game is against the Sun Belt.
• One game is against a BCS team.
• The NIU-Arkansas State game could be really good.
• Wyoming is a good matchup.
• The MAC could very easily win all of these games, and should win at least 3.

See below for the actual matchups, but I think this stands to be an interesting Bowl season for MAC fans.

Dec. 17: Gildan New Mexico Bowl – Albuquerque, N.M. 2:00 pm ET (ESPN)
Temple (8-4, 5-3) vs. Wyoming (8-4, 5-2, Mountain West Conference)

Dec. 17: Famous Idaho Potato Bowl – Boise, Ida. 5:30 pm ET (ESPN)Ohio (9-4, 6-2) vs. Utah State (7-5, 5-2, Western Athletic Conference)

Dec. 27: Little Caesars Pizza Bowl – Detroit, Mich. 4:30 pm ET (ESPN)
Western Michigan (7-5, 5-3) vs. Purdue (6-6, 4-4, Big Ten Conference)

Dec. 28: Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman – Washington, D.C. 4:30 pm ET (ESPN)
Toledo (8-4, 7-1) vs. Air Force (7-5, 3-4, Mountain West Conference)

Jan. 8: GoDaddy.com Bowl – Mobile, Ala. 9:00 pm ET (ESPN)
Northern Illinois (10-3, 7-1) vs. Arkansas State (10-2, 8-0, Sun Belt)

WKU Final Wrap up

One of the really strange things is how similar this year's WKU game was to last year's...in both games, WKU blew out to a huge lead that stretched into the high teens and then BG mounted a rally to get close in the end only to lose. Check out the similarity of these two trend lines.

NCAA Basketball Stats

NCAA Basketball

I listened to Coach Orr's presser last night, and I thought he was pretty frank.  We played a team that has not been able to score the ball and they shot 61% against us in the first half, and then when we did start getting some stops, we couldn't get the ball into the basket.

He did give credit--as do I--to our guys for fighting their way back into the game.  The deficit had been within 3 for a couple of minutes when Scott Thomas finally broke the Falcons through and hit a trey to tie the game at 53-53.  BG got a stop on the defensive end, and at this point, you've got as good a shot as you could ever hope to have, given that you were down 18.

A'uston Calhoun was wide open and fired a 3, which he missed, however.  (Coach said that when a guy's wide open it is hard to tell him not to take the shot).  WKU ran some clock, drew a foul on Thomas and then hit both free throws to go up 2 with about a minute left.  Calhoun missed again in the blocks, and that was pretty much all that was left for the Falcons as the Hilltoppers ground out the free throws necessary to get the win.

Statistically, it was a pretty sad story.  BG's .746 points per possession is very poor.  In fact, BG held WKU to .85, should have been plenty good enough to win.  The poor-shooting Hilltoppers actually outshot the Falcons who shot 35% on the 2FG and 27% from 3-FG.  The other factor that tiled heavily was free throws.  WKU shot 31 free throws, and even with 8 of those coming in the last minute, BG was still at a huge disadvantage at the line.  For the game, WKU was +13 at the line.

BG had 22 fouls to WKU's 16, which isn't that much different when you factor in the late game fouling.  That would seem to mean that BG was committing shooting fouls, which indicates a breakdown in the defense somewhere, and possibly not only the guy who commits the foul.

BG did take care of the ball effectively and was OK on the defensive boards, but did not turn in a great day on the offensive boards.

NCAA Basketball Stats

Scott Thomas had 16 points and 8 boards, and he got the points on 6-10 shooting, so that's a very good day's work for him.  A'uston Calhoun had 11 points and and 3 rebounds, but it took him 16 shots to get those 11 points.  He was 3 of 14 on 2FG.  He wasn't the only one to struggle with his shot:  Brown, Crawford, Kraus and Sealey also had poor shooting nights.

BG had only 10 assists against 14 turnovers.

So, that's the anatomy of a road loss.  BG has Malone on Wednesday, which is supposed to be a win, before they play Valparaiso on the road on Saturday.  The MAC has some strong teams, but both Miami and Akron are showing some vulnerabilities, but the Falcons have yet to show they can play at a high level over several nights, which they will need to do to capitalize.