The 4-1-1 on James Knapke

So, the news burst onto the scene in the past hour or so.  Matt Johnson will not play again this season due to a hip injury.  Given that he was considered the top QB in the conference, that's huge.  Even bigger, BG was transitioning to a new offense and now will through a new challenge into the mix.

The new QB is James Knapke.  He is a R-So who played in six games last year in a mop up role, as well as in the WKU game.  He is 4-10 passing in this career.

Doesn't mean he can't play, just means he hasn't.  He was a 3-star (ESPN--#76 QB) recruit out of Bishop Luers in Ft. Wayne, where he had a huge career.  He was a three-time state champion (first QB in Indiana to ever do that) and he was all-state as a senior.  He was part of the Clawson QB-a-year plan, and now he's going to get his shot.

A couple things.  First, there's no team that loses its starting QB without a blip.  It just doesn't happen.   This is the thing coaches fear most.  Having said that, the only people who know what Knapke can do are the people who have seen him practice.  Finally, he does have a very strong cast of players around him, which will certainly make his job easier.

So, my message to the Falcon faithful is not to lose hope.  Let's see how he does.  He does not play a truly meaningful game until October 4, so he has some time to get in the swing of it.  Let's not expect him to be Matt Johnson, give him some room and let him be who he is.  Let's hope the offense gathers around him to make it as easy as possible and the defense realizes they need to carry some more of the load and picks their game up.  This is a shocking, huge set back...but let's not write the season off an hour after finding out.

For those who are interested, BG has only two QBs behind Knapke...Nolan Dieter (walk-on brother to our WR and no game experience) and true FR Cody Callaway, who I assume is slated to be red-shirted but could play.  (A tweet from John Wagner indicates that Callaway is the back up, but remember, he was not even here for spring ball.)  The only other QB on the roster is transfer Clayton Nicholas, who is not eligible.

Breaking: Matt Johnson out for season

#bgsu football: QB Matt Johnson suffered hip injury and will miss rest of season.
— JWagnerBlade (@jwagnerblade) September 3, 2014

As you can see here, presumably from the Babers presser going on right now, Matt Johnson injured his hip in the Western Kentucky game and will be out for the remainder of the 2014 season.  Obviously, this is a whole new ball game for the Falcons and the MAC East.  WOW.  The trip down to Kentucky was a bigger disaster than we thought.

Best wishes to Matt for a full recovery...you are in our hearts.

Two quick notes.

• James Knapke will be the QB.  We will take a look at him later.
• This puts additional pressure on the defense to improve...the formula some fans were propagating--average defense, score huge--may not be in play.  

MAC Blogger Roundtable--My Answers

Week 2 of the MAC Blogger Roundtable.  Questions this week are from Over the Pylon, a BSU blog.

1) Now that the first weekend is over what did you learn about your team? Any unexpected surprises? Any lingering questions that are yet to be answered?

You could say that.  You could definitely say that.  The answer is just this?  Will BG be able to stop anyone.  The defensive performance against WKU was simply awful, making Brandon Doughty look like Johnny Unitas.  There was no coverage, no tackling and no pass rush.  The single question for BG--not so much for this week--is whether the team will be able to have good enough defense to compete for a title, or whether they will have to win 52-45.

2) After an opening weekend that saw more than a few tomato cans on MAC schedules, the big boys show up in Week 2 in the likes of Florida, Kentucky, Iowa, Mizzou, and Penn State. Any of the Power 5 get taken down by a MAC squad this weekend? Which one of the marquee games will have your attention?

I think a number of these games could be really interesting.  I'd give NIU a shot over Northwestern, Ball State over Iowa, Ohio over Kentucky and Akron over Penn State, if for no other reason than the travel Penn State has put in.  Having said that, the highest profile assignment--and the only home game--is Missouri and UT.  The Glass Bowl will be rocking, but I don't see the Tigers being intimidated and I think they probably have enough.

3) As Bowling Green was getting destroyed by Western Kentucky, it raised an interesting conundrum among the MAC fans. Do you root against your rivals and hope they take a shanking or should we band together as one MAC and hope for massive upsets? Does the quality of the team matter?

Are we talking about Toledo?  Because then I have to confess that when it comes to that, I don't care that much about the MAC.  Other than Toledo, I root for MAC teams when they play out of conference games.  Quality of teams doesn't really matter, though there is a slight nuance.  I root for our teams to beat good teams and not to lose to FCS teams.

Babers on MAC Teleconference: "Unrecognizable"

All weekend, I have been thinking about how Gregg Brandon would have talked about that defeat Friday...

• Seniors need to step up (name a few).
• Part of a process.
• WKU great team.
• Only so much coaches can do.

Coach Babers yesterday was the 100% opposite of that.  It was impressive.  He called it (as you will see below) "unrecognizable," which is a word I think we would all agree with.

You can listen to it yourself and you should...only about 3 minutes long.  Here are the highlights.

Elton Alexander of the PD asked Coach about the defense, noting that we are using guys who have played.  Alexander said it had to be "shocking."

Babers:

"It's not one of my high moments, that's for sure.  We're probably not as bad as we looked but not as good as we were hyped up to be.  We're probably somewhere in the middle."

My note:  that's a pretty bold statement there.  It recasts a lot of expectations in one statement.  Maybe he's challenging his guys.

Alexander follows up, calling it "amazing."

Babers:

"A lot of things went right for them, we were missing tackles and some of the alignments were not exactly right.  It was not a good day for us, that's for sure."

John Wagner asked what jumped out on film.

Babers said that the team was out there for a lot of long drives and got tired, citing 14 of 18 conversions on third down.

My note:  That is in some contrast to his previous presser when he said he didn't care about time of possession and that if the defense was good, they should be on the field.

On the coming week:

"When a team comes out and plays like that, the head coach has to take responsibility for it and I do.  I think our guys were reading their newspaper clippings a little bit and Western Kentucky wasn't....  So now we get to go back and do it the old-fashioned way.  I like that way better anyway."  (Emphasis added)

"We need to go back and work on us some more.  We are not ready.  We have a long stretch coming up, but it was so unrecognizable out there that we need to go back and work on us for a couple days."

ICSTR Reconvenes

Another summer has passed.  The photo at right captures the monks of the International Centre for Special Teams research on their way into their secret chambers where they will spend the year discerning the performance of the BG special teams.

In case you are new, the deal here is that I came up with a system to evaluate special teams that is zero-based.  The idea is that you don't really care if you get the ball after a kickoff on the 24 or 27...you want to know about plays with significant field position, possession, or scoring impact.  Positive impact plays get positive points and negative plays get negative points.  They don't necessarily balance out... 50 yard fair caught punt is +1 for the punting team and 0 for the receiving team.

You can go back and read here to see the scoring system I use.

OK, then.  First, there were no major plays either way.  No fumbles, TDs, etc.  Even with field position plays, BG had a very good game.  As you can see, the Falcons had one big punt, 3 touchbacks on KOs, a 52 yd FG for Tate, WKU stopped inside the 20 on a kickoff and the Burbrink PR.

The negative plays were the KO where BG started on the 15 after a penalty (made worse because WKU was kicking off deep due to a celebrationfoul), and missing a short FG.

WKU finished at -1.

BG special teams have been very solid.  It is BG's 16th straight game in positive territory.

BG Positive Plays (+8)
BG 49 yard net punt (+1)
BG KO TB (+1)
BG 52 yrd FG (+2)
BG KO TB (+1)
WKU KO Ret to 19 (+1)
BG 28 yd PR (+1)
BG KO TB (+1)

BG Negative Plays (-2)

BG KO return to 15 with penalty (-1)
BG Missed 27 FG (-1)

WKU Positive Plays (+2)
WKU KO TB (+1)
WKU KO TB (+2)

WKU Negative Plays (-3)
WKU KO Ret to 19 (-1)
WKU KO OB (-1)
WKU net 23 punt (-1)

BGSU Suspends William Houston for two years

William Houston, a BGSU football player who is accused of attempted rape, has been suspended by the university for 2 years. Cont.
— Nolan_Rosenkrans (@NolanRosenkrans) September 2, 2014

This above from The Blade.  

Benchmark Report, WKU

So here is now the WKU game matched against last year's MAC benchmarks, drawn from conference-only stats.  

A few notes:

• Just to put a point on it, last year BG led the nation in time of possession.  We ran one play per 30 seconds.  In this game, BG ran one play for every 20 seconds.
• BG made a first down on 38% of its plays.  That's an astounding number.  Sadly, WKU make a first down on 41% of its plays.
• BG gave up 3 sacks on 39 passing attempts, which is actually pretty high.
• Only 14% of BG's plays were 3rd down plays.  
• In contrast, BG did a decent job getting WKU into 3rd down plays, but WKU converted at a ridiculous rate...you'd expect to see that in a team that ran 97 plays.
• WKU completed 81% of its passes and was sacked once.  No friction at all provided by the BG defense.
• Same point:  WKU scored 45 points in 7 red zone attempts.