Football Staff Complete

Coach Loeffler filled out his coaching staff this morning, and one of the hires is a WOW.

Brian VanGorder will serve as Associate Head Coach and the coach of the linebackers.  This is a guy who has been around the block.  How does 38 years in coaching sound?  How does being DC at Louisville, Notre Dame, Auburn and Georgia sound?  Broyles award winner?  Or being a Head Coach at Georgia Southern and Wayne State?  Or five years as DC of the Atlanta Falcons?

I think that would sound good.  He'd be the most seasoned DC we ever had...and he isn't even the DC.

The final coaching spot is Julian Campenni, who will coach the d-line.  He has been a graduate assistant at BC and joins Coach Adazzio in the mix as younger coaches.  Nothing wrong with a mix...for example, Campenni has Van Gorder and Pelini to lean on and learn from as he develops the defensive line.

A couple other adjustments were made.  Erik Campbell, WRs, will also coordinate the passing game.  And Jacob Schoonover, who had previously been announced as the LB coach, will be the special teams/linebackers coach.  He worked with special teams at Illinois State.

So, all ten of the guys are in house.  I think BG fans should be happy with what we see.  The first step in a new coach's tenure is to hire the staff, and I think he's done a good job on paper.

One note.  If you check the Internet, it is pretty clear that a lot of the fans of schools where Loeffler has been OC don't have fond memories and basically think it's a joke that he's an FBS Head Coach. 

I guess I have a couple responses to that.  First, Tennessee fans told us that about Clawson.  Second, when you look at the staff Loeffler hired, which of these things do you see?

A.  A guy who's thinks he knows everything he needs to know and doesn't need to get better.
B.  A guy who understands the challenge ahead of him and has chosen a staff to compliment what he is good at so the program can succeed...a guy with either the humility or the drive to surround himself with good people.

It's B.  So far, I like how things are going.  Nothing will guarantee success, but we're moving in the right direction and I'm excited to see what this guy...guy B...can do.

Falcons Stun Green Bay with Blowout Win

Well, of all the things I expected to see yesterday at the Stroh, a blow out win was not one of them.  BG, which had two straight poor to very poor road losses, came back at home and played its best game of the season to beat Green Bay.

BG won 97-68 and the outcome was never really in doubt.  In fact, Green Bay never led.  With about 8 minutes left in the first half, BG was up 20-14.  Over the next four minutes, BG went on a 13-6 run to inflate the lead to 13.  BG kept it rolling and led 49-29 at halftime, meaning over the last 8 minutes the outscored the Phoenix 29-15.

In the second half, BG did what they had to go, which was to prevent any kind of comeback.  The lead never got inside 18 and BG led by as much as 35.

It was a remarkable game.  BG had their best game of the year on both ends of the floor.  BG is a much different team at home so far (undefeated) and a much different team when they are getting stops and playing in transition, an observation echoed by Justin Turner and Coach Huger last night.

As advertised, it was a fast game, with 81 possessions.  BG scored 1.2 ppp and allowed .84, both of which were season highs in D1 games.  The only comparable offensive performance against decent competition was last year vs. WMU.  The defense was also as good as a couple of BG's non-D1 opponents last year.

BG held GB to 40% shooting on 2FGs and 32% 3FG shooting.  In comparison, BG shot 64% from 2FGs and 41% from 3FG.  That's going to win you games.  That's as compared to the national average of about 50% EFG%.  BG did have some turnovers, but dominated the boards on both ends and got to the line more. BG was 19 of 39 at the line, which is 69% and about average while GB was only 13 of 24.  There were 45 fouls called.

Hard to put to fine a point on this.  BG dominated both ends of the court and this is a decent team.  They gave Belmont their only loss, beat NIU (a team picked ahead of BG in the MAC).  They battled Oregon and Iowa tough.  This was a good opponent.

Obviously, you're going to see some individual performances buried inside that.  Justin Turner was just spectacular.  He scored 25 points, shooting 8 of 14 from the field with 6 assists and 1 turnover.  He was 7 of 9 on his 2 FGs and 8 of 10 at the line.  He was very efficient.  He's so effective finishing at the rim, it would just open so much up.  There was one play when he went coast to coast into three guys at the rim and scored with the foul.  He's just a sophomore and I think he's playing better this year than last.

Wiggins double-doubled in the first 10 minutes of the game.  He ended up with 12 points on 4 of 7 shooting and at the line.  He added 19 rebounds, the second most of his career. 

Dylan Frye, who is struggling with his shot, made 5 of 9 overall and 2 of 5 from 3FGs to break into double figures

BG got really good minutes out of Fields, Laster, and Sierra.  Sierra was especially good with 7 points and 8 rebounds in 20 minutes.  He can handle the ball and shoot from outside as well as play inside.  Not sure why he's not getting more minutes in general.   Matiss made 2 3FGs in 6 minutes.

BG started Fields, Plowden, Frye, Wiggins and Turner for the second straight game.

Anyway, right now it appears that we have a team that plays well at home and struggles on the road.  The next three are at home and very winnable.  BG's goal needs to be to hit the MAC season at 8-4, when we open @Kent, the surprise pre-season team in the MAC.  Once BG is on the road again, they're going to need to get some consistency.

The frustrating thing is that you can see some ability and a critical mass of players.  You figure, you take the starters and mix Lillard, Matiss, Sierra and Laster in, if they were playing effectively for longer stretches of time, you could be OK.

You just don't see it all come together very often, and when its bad its pretty bad.

BG Football Loses Two Verbals

A couple of quick news hits from the recruiting front. BG has lost a couple of members of its incoming class, which is not a surprise.

Logan Holgorsen, the highly-rated QB from Morgantown actually switched his twitter profile a while ago.  Holgorsen and his father all tie back to Lubbock, so it isn't a surprise.  If I had to guess, Texas State, which is where the WVU OC is head coach now, would be a likely landing spot.  By the way, Jordan Strack has reported that he will not be coming to BG.

The other is Josh Moore, a JUCO WR who committed last June.  He cites "unforeseen circumstances."

https://t.co/MO8K11gKxS ‼️
December Grad: 3.1 GPA#LookingForAHome🙇🏾‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/yqWiJcXSBy

— J'Smoove (@Moore_MVP) December 8, 2018

No idea what went on.  There was a tweet from a Josh Miller who is (and I assume now the word was) BG's Assistant WR Coach who apologized for BG deceiving Moore in some way.  No idea what the worst is, but Moore won't be coming to BG.  One good thing is he is a December grad and could have been at BG learning the system early in the Spring and our WRs have been thin.

Anyway, best of luck to Josh and Logan.

Green Bay Arrives at The Stroh

So, the beat goes on.  BG faces a pretty tough test Saturday against the Phoenix of Green Bay.  Formerly Wisconsin-Green Bay, this team has a pretty good basketball tradition that had fallen on some tough times...but seems to be turning it around this year.

They won 20 games in 2014, 15, and 16, playing in the NIT the first two of those years and then in the NCAA in 2016.  They were 18-13 the next year and fell to 13-20 last year.

This year, they were picked to finish 4th in the Horizon, which is higher than two teams BG has already lost to (albeit both in road games).

BG beat them on the road in OT last year.  This year, the Phoenix are off to a good start.  They are 5-3 with one non-D1 win.  They beat NIU and Belmont over the past week in Green Bay...the Belmont win, in particular, is significant.  In addition, their losses are to Indiana State, @Iowa and @Oregon, so they are without an especially bad loss.

The first thing to know is they like to play fast.  They are #11 in the country in number of possessions (that Belmont game must have been something to see).  BG likes to go fast, too, so this could be fun to watch at least from that perspective.

Green Bay is right on the national average for points per possession, while BG is below average defensively.  Green Bay is also below average defensive (1.03) but they are closer.  BG's offense is very poor to date.  BG is #234 in offensive efficiency.

So far as that goes, look how evenly matched the GB offense and BG defense are.  Pretty much, BG allows what Green Bay is used to getting.  GB shoots well.  They don't try a ton of 3FGs, but they are effective at making them and are above average from 2 FG.  They take good care of the ball and average getting to the line.  They are almost exactly as bad shooting FTs as BG is.

You'd have to expect that they might work the 3FG more into their attack, given BG's issues, but then again the game might largely be played in transition.

As noted, BG's offense has been poor.  BG is very good on the boards, but well below average on every other measure.  Other than giving up a lot of FTs, Green Bay is effective/average or better at every aspect.  They are very good defending the 3 (#66) but in the bottom 100 in the country at defending the 2FG, which is where you'd like to see BG focus to try and prop up the FG shooting that is making it difficult for them to win.

Individually, they have 3 players scoring 14 a game.

One is JayQuan McCloud, a second-team All-American JUCO player.  He is very efficient, shooting 49% and 41%, and usually comes off the bench.

Second is ShanQuan Hemphill, who played at Florida Southwestern for former BG staffer Marty Richter.  He's 6'6" and shooting 61%, all of 2FGs, horrible at FTs.  He also averages 5.3 rpg.

Third is Sandy Cohen III.  He is a Marquette transfer who opened his GB career by scoring 16 and grabbing 6 rebounds vs. BG last year.  He's also 6'6", shoots 45% and 36% and leads the team with 6.8 RPG and over 6 assists per game.  He is all-Horizon pre-season.

Lastly, 6'8" Manny Patterson average 8 ppg and 6 rpg in about 20 minutes per game.  He played in foul trouble a lot against BG last year.

This is a pretty experienced team and much different than the team we played last year, with the two JUCO players.  They are playing pretty well.  BG has played better at home, but this is the best non-conference team we will see at home and if the effort isn't any better than the last two games, Green Bay will this one.

Zone Makes Falcon Men Into Zombies

So, while there's a lot of excitement about the Falcon football team, hidden in there is a continuing malaise in the men's basketball program.  The Falcons lost their last 6 last year and are 3-5 in D1 games this year, making it 3 wins in the last 14 games.  Last night's loss was an 18-point loss to a 2-7 Cleveland State team and just has to rank as very disappointing.  There was no energy on BG's side.  Coach Huger said they were walking around like "zombies" after the game...by which I mean he said it after the game but the zombie walking was during the game.

BG started out hot and had an 11-point lead in the first half.  Then, CSU switched to a match-up zone and that seems to send the Falcons into zombie mode.  Coach said we were getting the looks we needed and just missing shots, but then there's that zombie comment and you don't really know where that falls out.  It's the second time that BG has completely fried when facing a zone this year.  The offense went south and then the defense joined it.  Coach wants to say we attack the zone well, but this team's continuing inability to attack a zone defense has to reflect on the coaching most of all.  He simply should be able to prepare to beat a team playing a zone, especially a team like CSU that doesn't play one ordinarily.  Huger himself said it wasn't a good zone.

Coach did try to shake up the starting lineup.  He started FR Caleb Fields in place of Lillard and Plowden in place of Uju.  Also, Michael Laster was a DNP.  No idea, he might be injured, but when they needed a PG to spell Frye, they went with DeAndre' Austin.

BG had a putrid offensive night.  Remember that CSU was allowing 1.08 points per possession coming into the game...BG scored .92.  BG shot 36% EFG, its lowest of the season, making 38% of its 2FG and 22% of its 3FG.  Those are just unbelievably bad.  Over the last four games, BG is 20-93 on 3FGs.  BG did take good care of the ball, did well on the offensive boards, but didn't get to the line very much and shot FTs poorly again.

That was complemented by an equally bad night on defense.  CSU, a struggling team, scored 1.18 per possession.  They allowed 63% EFG.  Both numbers were BG's worst game of the season.  CSU made 50% of the 2FGs and 50% of their 3 FGS.  As of this morning, BG is #333 (out of 351) in defending the 3.

Coach was rough on his defense and there was a little back and forth about whether missing shots or not getting stops is worse with Todd Walker.  I will say this.  Our team is horrible in half-court offense.  They need stops and transition to score points.

Individually, really only one Falcon had a strong statistical game and that was Wiggins.  He scored 21 points in 26 minutes, shooting 7 of 14 from the field, 7-9 from the line, adding 16 rebounds and no turnovers.  They offered him space to operate in the zone and he took advantage of it before foul trouble limited his minutes.

Justin Turner scored 16, but it was a rough night.  He shot 6 of 18 and 2 of 7 to get there.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but BG's other starters were 5 of 21 shooting.  Matiss came off the bench to score 9 on 4 of 7 and 1 of 1 shooting, and 6 rebounds in 13 minutes.  If he's up to it physically, you'd like to see him in there more, too.

Anyway, the team is not better than we expected right now.  In fact, they are probably worse.  Next up is a pretty decent Green Bay team that is 5-3 and beat NIU and Belmont in its last two games.  Let's hope they play man-man.

The BG defense did improve

I know that there was some chatter during the season about the lack of progress our defense made in its first year under Carl Pelini's coaching.  I wanted to make a couple of points about that.

First, even as Eliano was being let go, we knew that BG had a lack of talent as well as a lack of good coaching.  The biggest complaint was the defense never seemed to improve and that's certainly a fair description.  The problem became worse with off-season transfers and dismissals as well as serious injuries to Konowalski, Murphy, Pence, Belton, Walder, etc, and lesser injuries to Croslen, Brooks, etc toward the end of the year.

It just wasn't going to be night and day given all that.

With that, the defense did improve.  Yes, from among the worst to merely bad, but the defense did improve.  As you can see, in MAC play, BG gave up 4.2 points fewer per game and .6 yards fewer per play, moving to 9th in both categories.  BG moved up to 11th in rushing yards per carry allowed and held ground in pass efficiency defense and 3rd down defense.

Again, not claiming this to be a stratospheric leap.  Just saying that its very possible the 18 defense had less talent than the 17 defense did and there was coaching involved even in this modest increase.  In contrast, despite having people back and relative health, BG's offense scored 6.5 fewer points per game and fell from 7th to 9th.

BG Nabs Football Verbal

St. Francis Tight End Joey Carroll has committed to BGSU.

He’d been committed to Toledo for a long time, but it didn’t work out. Scot Loeffler has his first recruit on board.

— Jordan Strack (@JordanStrack) December 4, 2018

Joey Carroll will go down as the first verbal of the Loeffler Era.  He's a big young man who is also local, which apparently is something we're going to focus on.  He had offers from Toledo, Army, Colgate, EKU, EMU, WMU and Youngstown State.

Some notes.  Here's the story in The Blade when he committed.  The recruiting people in the story say he is an "on-the-ball" TE who can also run in the slot and catch passes.  He was second-team All-TRAC.  There are also stories listing him as big at 6'7".  Didn't find much from him in the way of stats.

He joins Presley Motes, Julius Van Rooyen, Tyler Traylor and James Lachey as TEs at a position where I believe there is immediate playing time available.