We start our review of the Falcon football season with the offense. I think Coach put the bottom line correctly when he said that what kept this from being a special season was a lack of offensive production.
This was a source of significant frustration for the Nation. When BG took a 20-19 lead against San Jose State, you had a feeling that the only way BG would win the game if the final score was 20-19...and it wasn't wrong, since we finished with 20 but San Jose State scored 10 more.
When that's your strategy, you're admitting some bad things right off the bat. And, while our defense is very good, they weren't the Baltimore Ravens, which is the only team I can remember winning a Championship with this approach.
And that needs to get fixed for next season. I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but it has to get fixed. The offense doesn't have to be great, but it has to be good, and this year it was not even average and was essentially the same as it was in 2011 in terms of overall production.
BG's scoring (all stats here are MAC games only), went from 23.9 to 24.4, which is barely any improvement at all. BG was 9th in the MAC in points scored this year, 10th last year. In yards per play, BG was just where they were last year....5.4 yards per play and tied for 9th in the MAC. BG had 28 yards per game more in total, but that was 10th last year and 10th this year.
The fans are going to focus on Matt Schilz. The QB is the focal point of the offense and you have to expect that kind of scrutiny. Also, the QB is the most important position on the field. It is very difficult to win in college football without a good QB--Kent did it, but needed a pro-quality talent to make it happen.
I'm not going to rip him. I probably think he's better than you do, but I'm not making an argument that he is anything other than what we have seen. Coach Clawson has said many times that he has to be more consistent--and he does seem to miss key throws, especially over the middle.
He has been our starting QB at a very difficult time. His first two years he had little offensive line to work with and one of the country's worst running attacks. The lack of protection limited the play calling and then the defenses were able to key on our limited options. For the '12 season, BG had a running game and finally a credible (if not great) offensive line, but the WRs were very disappointing.
Again, not to say that the passing game was not his fault because he was a big part of it, but he's never had a complete cast to work with either.
BG was 10th in passing yards per game. We were 9th in passing efficiency and that was down from 129 last year to 119 this year. We fell from 7th to 10th in completion percentage, had a lower percentage of passes that netted a TD and a higher percentage intercepted. Yards per attempt was down as well.
If anything was a strong point it was yardage. We had 11.9 yards per reception, indicating there were some big plays in there, and there were.
Here's the thing. Our coaching staff had options and every time they landed on Schilz. They had a bunch of guys come in the first year, and they are all gone now and then they had Trent Hurley and he couldn't beat out Schilz and transferred to Delaware, where he was starting.
Maybe they were locked onto Schilz and maybe he really was the best, either way, the coaching staff made the choice and they're accountable for it.
And, assuming he stays healthy, I would expect him to be our starter next year. The options are a R-So (Johnson) who played a little bit this year and Knapke, who will be a R-FR. I can't imagine them taking their senior dominated team and putting it in the hands of an untested starter. Maybe I'm wrong, but if they didn't do it by now...
So, what has to happen around him to make the offense more productive?
The obvious answer is the running game. BG had a much better running attack this year, but perhaps a little bit of perspective is due here. BG went from 4.3 yards per carry to 4.7 yards per carry (sack adjusted). That yards per carry is still 7th in the MAC. So, while the running game was improved, it wasn't unstoppable, and in those 4th Quarter situations, we lacked the ability to impose our will on teams with the running game.
In fact, the strategy became pretty clear. Lock down on BG's running game and make the passing game beat you.
The team is solid at RB. Samuel and Hopgood and both solid and Jamel Martin is expected back as well. Andre Givens has potential, too.
The question will be the offensive line. I felt like the line was better this year but I don't think it was great. They went from dreadful to winning their share of the battles but against really good defensive lines, they struggled, and if BG is going to win a championship, those are battles the team will need to win
So, if the line continues to improve (and they lose only one starter) it would help the running game move up from the middle of the MAC to the top 3 or so. The pass protection is hard to rate. BG didn't give up many sacks at all, but I think that's as much a function of playcalling and Schilz knowing to get rid of the ball, because he seemed to be under some pressure to me.
Which leaves us with the WRs. They were almost all new this year, and BG was counting on some new players to produce. If anyone falls in that category it would be Chris Gallon, who had 54 receptions. Schilz had worked well with Kamar Jordan as a lead receiver and maybe Gallon can take that role. Shaun Joplin had 40 catches and some nice plays (16 yard average) but he also seemed to disappear for significant periods of time. Ryan Burbrink is a nice walk on to play in the slot, and Jermal Hosley was injured and should be back to contribute. The biggest disappointment was Je'Ron Stokes who had signed at two BCS schools but managed only 15 grabs.
And, for all the talk of using TEs in our offense, I never felt like we really used Alex Bayer as well as we could have.
This unit, along with the offensive line and the QB, just has to play better. BG's players didn't just get older between 11 and 12 on defense...they got older and better. We need to see the same kind of improvement in the offensive unit for next year, or we won't get where we want to go. Yes, we have a bunch of guys back, but OU and Kent both promise to be very solid teams and if BG's offense stays flat--as it did compared to last year--then so will our ceiling.
Other Notes:
BG only turned the ball over 10 times, which was tied for 3rd in the MAC. Part of that is playcalling.
BG was terrible in the red zone, scoring only 3.4 points per trip. We were the only team to miss 4 red zone FGS (five missed none). We made it to the red zone 27 times in 8 games, which was 9th in the MAC. Both of those numbers were significantly worse than they were last year.
BG did improve on 3rd down--from 31% to 38%--but was still 10th in the MAC on 3rd down conversions.
Final Note:
The chattering classes have started to talk again about the Clawfense that our coach supposedly tried to implement at Tennessee. I think that's wrong. He has proven time and again he can develop offensive players. If anything, I fault him for not being prepared for the WR exodus--you could see it coming, right?--or for not having a better QB--because even if he was the best you had, there were chances to fix that--but I don't believe that he can't coach offensive football or can't do it in D1.
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