Travis Greene MAC East Offensive Player of the Week

Travis Greene continued BG's success as MAC East Offensive Player of the Week...he's been a little overshadowed by the QB, but Greene deserves a lot of accolades.  He's about to become BG's all-time record holder for career rushing, which is a huge accomplishment.  There have been some great ones and he is certainly among the best we have ever had.  With BG having four and probably five games left, he's almost certain to get the record.

Also, I know that we play more games than we used to.  However, the RBs don't get the ball as often as they used to, either.  Here's a good stat.  Greene's career yards per carry is 5.6, and the program record is 5.7 by Fred Durig.  So, however you like to evaluate RBs, he's among the best we have had.
Congrats Travis.  Thanks for being a Falcon.

Offensive Player of the Week: Bowling Green RB Travis Greene
Bowling Green senior running back Travis Greene (Carol City, Fla.) rushed for a career-high three touchdowns as Bowling Green defeated Ohio 62-24 Wednesday night. Greene, who is now just 175 yards shy of becoming Bowling Green's new all-time career rushing record-holder, rushed 13 times for 106 yards – an average of 8.6 yards per carry – in the win against the Bobcats. It was his third 100-yard game of the season and the Falcons' sixth victory in a row.

Special Teams Research, OU Edition

BG continued to play much stronger special teams in the OU game, with a +6 which is tied with the Akron game for BG's best game of the season.  BG had its 4th straight positive game and 6th in the last 7.  After a couple of really bad games to start the season, this part of the team has been greatly stabilized as the team has played better overall.  BG didn't have a lot of big plays--mostly a partially blocked punt and a bunch of touchbacks on kickoffs, but the Falcons also only had one negative play as well.

BG finished +6 for the game.  AK had +4.

BG Positive (+7)

BG KO Return to the 37 (+1)
BG Block punt (+1)
BG KO TB (+1)
BG KO TB (+1)

BG KO TB (+1)

BG KO TB (+1)

BG KO TB (+1)

BG Negative (-1)

BG miss PAT (-1)

OU Positive (+6)

OU KO TB (+1)
OU KO TB (+1)

OU 45 yard net punt (+1)
OU Punt to BG 14 (+1)
OU Punt to BG 9 (+2)

OU Negative (-2)

BG KOR to 37 (-1)
OU net 13 yard punt (-1)

Past and Future Opponent Land

Tennessee  (5-4) Beat South Carolina 27-24
Maryland (2-7) Lost 31-24 to Wisconsin
Memphis (8-1) Lost to Navy
Purdue (2-7) Lost 48-14.  To Illinois.
Buffalo (5-4) Beat Kent 18-17 to stay alive
UMass (1-8) Lost to Akron
Akron (4-5) See above
Kent (3-6) Lost to Buffalo
WMU (6-3) Destroyed Ball State
Ball State (3-7) See above

MAC Vs.

All FBS: 12-30
P5: 4-20
Non P5-FBS: 8-10
FCS: 9-0

West leads East, 8-2

BG MBB wins...but...

So, one thing is certain after Michael Huger's first game at BG.

There's nowhere to go but up.

In full disclosure, I was not at the game, but it certainly appeared to be a relatively painful display of basketball, both as a Falcon fan and a fan of the sport.

In the end, BG won in overtime against Notre Dame College, a DII team that was picked to finish 7th in the Mountain East Conference.  That's better than losing, but BG had a serious struggle in this one.

BG trailed by 12 at the half and didn't take their first lead until there were 5 minutes left in the game.  Read that sentence again.  At that point it was 47-45.  From there, for what ended up being the last 10 minutes, BG scored 27 points and "held" Notre Dame to 20 and BG ended up winning in OT.  Notre Dame actually led in overtime (once) before BG was able to put it away.

As for the sport of basketball, there were an astounding 65 fouls called.  BG shot 57 free throws in the game, making only 34 (64%).  As I said, I wasn't there but that strikes me as a borderline unwatchable game.

The worst part of the game for BG was the first half, when they were only 4 of 21 from the field and 9 of 21 from the line.  For the game, BG shot 35%, 18% from 3FG and 59.6% from the line.  BG had 20 turnovers to only 18 for Notre Dame.

Maybe the most interesting part of the game was who started and who played.

Starting where Parker, Worrell, Denny Joseph and Alcegaire.  Off the bench, Lillard (28 minutes) and Ali (24 minutes) got the most time, while Wiggins, Malik, Tisdale, Fox and Mayleben did get time as well.

Lillard was BG's leading scorer, with a very effective 20 points on 6 of 9 shooting and 1 of 2 from beyond the arc.  Zack Denny double-doubled at 12 points and 16 rebounds and Ismail Ali had 10 points.

This was an exhbition game.  Repeat.  It was only an exhibition game.  If it was a real game, you would have been informed of where to tune in your area for emergency information.

BG starts the regular season next Saturday against New Orleans.  Just to say this...it appears for now that we are who we feared we might be.  Hopefully, things will improve from here.

Sweet Victory #7: The Defense

For the first couple drives, it did not look like the BG defense was going to play like they had the last couple games...and, in fact, maybe like we were going to get the defense that we feared we were going to have early in the year.  But, as I noted in the recap, the defense made the stops in the middle of the game and eventually created a pick six.  OU had a garbage time TD...in the time when the game was being decided, BG held OU to 17 points and scored 7.

Now, inside that, OU certainly did move the ball.  They ran 97 plays--which is usually BG's move--and ended up with 34 first downs, 299 yards rushing and 543 overall yards.  Those numbers are partially mitigated by the large number of plays, but even with that the Bobcats had 5.3 yards per rush, 6 yards per passing attempt, 11.6 yards per pass completion and 5.6 yards per play overall.

BG struggled on 3rd down, as you would expect with a team that ran that many plays.  OU was 9 of 19 on 3rd and 1 of 3 on 4th.  They continued to struggle in the red zone, with 2 TDs, 1 FG and1 pick six in four trips.

A key factor in the game was that Derrius Vick was injured and left the game very early in the 3rd quarter.  Vick was presenting serious problems for BG.  He was running effectively on option looks as well as from the pocket, and he was 11 of 15 passing, though only for 82 yards.  He was replaced by JD Sprague, who we saw last year, and while Sprague was effective running the ball he was a lot more inaccurate in the air, going 10 of 24 with the pick six.

Running QBs always worry me. Fortunately, in BG's next two games they will play mostly dropback style guys.  Anyway, in the end OU had a lot of yards, poked some holes in the BG defense, but couldn't get enough points to make it matter.

Trent Greene and James Sanford were both in on 11 tackles.  Greene also had a sack and a breakup.  Clint Stephens and Austin Valdez both had 9 tackles and Eilar Hardy had 8.  Royster had one sack and one additional TFL, Terrance Bush had a sack and Zach Colvin had a tackle for loss.  Dernard Turner had the pick six and Brandon Harris had a late interception.

As far as I am concerned, the defense continues to play above expectations and more than well enough for the team to win.  Their toughest tests are coming in the next two weeks.

Sweet Victory #7: The Offense

When it isn't working, it can be painful to watch.

When it is working, it is a thing to behold.

The BG offense that is.  And it has been right where Coach Babers said it would be, humming at full strength with great players who are executing at a ridiculously high level.

The best stat is this.  BG had 8 offensive touchdowns and 3 punts last night.  That's just crushing productivity and essentially puts the game away on its own.

Here are some other nuggets.

BG had 29 first downs in 69 offensive plays.  BG made a first down on 42% of its plays.

BG averaged 6 yards per rush, 10.2 yards per passing attempt and 13.8 yards per pass completion.  Overall, the Falcons had 8.4 yards per play.

These are all video game numbers.

BG was 8 of 12 on third down and didn't have to go for it once on 4th.  They scored TDs on all 5 red zone trips and had no turnovers.

You might be getting used to it, but you shouldn't.  This is show-stopping stuff.

Matt Johnson was 26 of 35 for 74%, 4 TDs and no interceptions.  At 365 yards, that's 14 yards for every completion.  He took only one sack and extended numerous plays with his feet and his ability to move around in the pocket.

In all 10 receivers caught passes for BG.  (James Knapke played for a while as well).  The leader was Gehrig Dieter who was 9 for 136 and 2 scores, which included an outstanding sideline catch for a TD and a 75 yard TD where he won a 50/50 battle with a great play against the defender.  Lewis 6 for 102 and 1 TD, Moore 4 for 83 and 1 TD (that was #7 on SportsCenter) and Teo Redding scored one, too.

As noted above, the running game was also highly effective.  Travis Greene had 106 yards on 13 carries...which is 8.2 yards per carry, and he also scored 3 times.  Fred Coppet had 73 yards on 12 carries, which is 6.1 per attempt.

There's almost no blemishes.  BG's offense was completely dominant last night.  No one is stopping them right now.  It will be interesting to see how WMU, UT and Ball State fare.

Sweet Victory #7: Recap

BG finished their sweep through the MAC East...winning every division game for the 3rd straight year.  The difference this year was they way it happened, which meant finishing with three laughers, including wins over OU and Akron, who were both considered contenders for the East crown this year.

The upshot is that it is almost impossible for BG to lose the East.  It is not clinched.  Only Buffalo or Kent could catch BG and they play tonight (Thursday) so only one of them will come out of that with the chance to win.  Even then, they would have to win out while BG would have to lose out for the Falcons not to get to Ford Field with their third straight East title.

Having said that, this is where things are going to get interesting.  BG was in exactly this position last year and they lost out with their last 3 games against the West.  And for as great as the season is going, and the two Big 10 wins, we're going to get a good idea between now and Thanksgiving (and really in the next 13 days) about how good we actually are.

Here's the thing.  Beating the East and beating the West are not the same thing.  The East has only won one cross-over game against the West so far this year.  Now, I am comforted by the fact that BG is smoking the East...that's better than ekeing out wins, which is what was going on last year.  But, the toughest two conference games for BG are the next two.

So, we're going to see if BG is good enough to win the MAC over the next few days.  Again, I feel better about it, but I don't think it is out of the woods.

My preview said that OU sort of felt like the Akron and Kent games and that's what ended up happening.  BG's offense has not been stopped by anyone yet, and BG's defense was able to get enough stops to get the offense a couple scores ahead and then the advantage really tilts our way.

BG gave up a bunch of yards, but it is a little misleading.  Not completely misleading...OU ran a bunch of plays and therefore has a high yard total.  They did get 6 yards a play, which is good but not fantastic and not anything close to BG's 8.4  OU did come in with the worst rushing offense in the MAC and ended up with over 5 yards per carry, essentially double their average coming in.

Basically, here is how it went down.  After each team had a failed possession, the team traded Tds until it was 14-14 with 10 minutes left in the 2nd Q.  We were starting to worry that this might be that nightmare game where BG was going to have score literally every time they had the ball to win.

At that point, the game unfolded as expected.

First, BG had a 3rd and 13 and hit Ronnie Moore in space and he made a SC #7 type highlight run to get all the way across the field and dive into the corner of the opposite end zone to put BG ahead (missed xp, 20-14.)

Then, the defense began to make an adjustment and got a 3 and out, followed by a Scottie Miller partially blocked punt.  Off a short field, BG scored again to go up 27-14 with about minutes left in the half.

So, in 5 minutes of game time, BG went up 2 scores which greatly changes a team's psychology.  BG didn't score again in that half, but BG got two more stops heading into halftime and then got a stop on OU out of the locker room in the third, giving the defense four straight stops.

BG scored in a minute off that stop with a 75-yard pass to Gehrig Dieter, who made a huge play on a 50/50 ball to get the score.  at 34-14, the thing was essentially over.  To seal the deal, OU was driving deal in BG territory when Dernard Turner got a pick 6 to seal the game.

So, the defense got a string of stops in the middle of the game that allowed BG to put some distance between them and the Bobcats and they also contributed a touchdown.  There was a big special teams play in there...and the offense continued to chug along at a frightening pace.

More on the individual units coming up.

For now, BG did everything they needed to do last night, winning 62-24 against a conference opponent in November.  The next couple weeks are going to be very interesting.  We're coming into it playing a lot better than last year...but still, the thing needs to be done.