Game thoughts....

[hammb]

hammb. You're ALIVE!

I thought for sure you had three heart attacks in the first quarter alone.

Good to have you back. You're saying quite a bit of what I was saying last year in October. I'm attempting to be pragmatic. But the ST play and the offensive play calling is making that very difficult.

So, in the spirit of "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all", I say good night.

No heart attacks. Watched the game with TG, Warthog, and Dayon's Den. We survived. By the end I was laughing more than anything because that's all I could really do.

I didn't make it out of the first quarter without being told to watch my language, however

[Schadenfreude]

I'm not as down as Hammb.

I mean, sure, the special teams were pathetic, atrocious, awful, embarassing... you name it. It was horrible out there. People will be talking about this game for years, and our middle school special teams are part of the reason.

My only solace is that I refuse to believe our special teams will remain this bad for the rest of the season. I don't have the answers, but the crisis is real and I've got to think our coaches will see that, and respond, and that there is a way to fix this.

Does Brandon invite the student body to show up for try outs? Does he mix in more of our starters on offense and defense onto the special teams?

I don't know. But what we saw out there tongiht was too awful to stay that way.

Take away the special teams mistakes and Bowling Green wins this game by 18 points, which is about what I figured going in.

On offense: I'm very surprised we didn't open up the offense more than we did. I listened on the radio, so I don't exactly why this is.

On the bright side, we were quite effective in this limited offense. Again, I only listened on the radio, but it struck me that there were some analogies to the option offense with what we were doing. An option, with the right athletes, can work wonders. And we did move the ball.

It seems to me that, eventually, we will grow the playbook or set up more passes by our emphasis (and effectiveness) with the ground game.

How much of this playcalling is due to our receiver corps hurting or just not having the chops? Dunno. If we can get Partridge on the field, that could help.

I feel great about our defense. I mean, that's turning into a strength for our team. Our defense held Wisconsin to 21, and they held Buffalo to 13 in regulation. We haven't seen that kind of toughness around here in a while.

This is a very young team. THey played with a lot of heart tonight, and they won.

Looking ahead -- neither Florida International nor Kent State are looking particularly tough. We clearly can't look past anybody -- but I think, as fans, we can see that we've got a couple more games to try to grow and get ready for Ohio -- which suddenly looks like it might be a bit of a challenge.

We'll see. We won tonight, and as awful as it was to watch, it's 100 times better than losing. If you don't believe me, put yourself in the shoes of a Northern Illinois or a Toledo fan tonight.

[Falcon30]

I heard on the radio on the way home that our attendance was 14,227 or something like that.

Pretty dissapointing even with a W.

wow...it looked like more than that on sebocam.

Someone need to talk to our 'people' about counting attendance.

[michhiker28]

Maybe Little Sisters of the Poor could release Sister Mary from lunch room duty to come and coach or special teams. Can't get any worse than it is. Or maybe we could just have her pray for them. Sheesh.

--MH

[bgsufan1970]

Applaud the positive view. The heart the team showed and comeback ability is something to build upon. We are young and part of winning is learning how to win when the going is rough. We have to get better each week so we can't be at all satisfied with a 3OT win against Buffalo.

[hammb]

It's not just the unwillingness to pass though, it's the repetitiveness across the board. We seriously ran about 5 or six plays tonight.

1) QB rolls with one WR running a 5 yard out, TE at 7 yard crossing pattern, far WR at 15-20 yard crossing pattern

2) QB fakes quick hitter to one WR and dumps off for RB or WR screen the other way

3) Winovich in motion from one side to other QB off tackle that direction

4) Sprint option

5) HB Stretch

6) QB counter (really only applicable when Barnes was in).


That is just about it, period. There may have been a few others sprinkled in occasionally, but I would bet money that if you rewatch this game that these 6 plays made up 90+% of our offense this evening. I'm all for running the ball, hell I prefer it, but dammit show some creativity. We don't run Macon at all between the tackles, and you cannot tell me that the OL can only create holes for the QBs. We run the ball for 350 yards and don't throw a single play action pass the entire game? What's even worse as that we don't even mix it up with these 6 plays. It was constanly running one play for 3-4 times in a row, once they stop it we would move onto the next play until they stop that. Eventually go back to the original play.

We won, but as I said this is not about wins and losses. It's about a coaching staff that is clearly not capable of correcting the issues that this team has. They are not things that are surfacing in the last 2 games, either, these are the exact same issues that plagued us last year en route to a disappointing year. Not only are these the same issues revealing themselves again, which is disappointing to say the least, but these are the exact issues that are ALWAYS tied to coaching. STs, tackling, intensity, and penalties. These are things that, IMO, directly relate to coaching.

We have won a good number of games in Brandon's tenure, that I agree with, but we have had the signs of being a poorly coached team for that entire span. Those things are really starting to catch up with this team, and it is becoming more and more apparent that the current staff has no idea how to stop that snowball.

For the life of me I don't know how you can come off a year like last year and not even improve on a sinle one of your biggest weaknesses.

[hammb]

Applaud the positive view. The heart the team showed and comeback ability is something to build upon. We are young and part of winning is learning how to win when the going is rough. We have to get better each week so we can't be at all satisfied with a 3OT win against Buffalo.

This was Buffalo. You shouldn't need to know how to win when the going gets rough against Buffalo, because the going should not get rough against Buffalo. Part of winning may be learning to win, don't deny it, but a reasonable kicking game and learning how to tackle are a lot bigger parts of winning than that.

[Schadenfreude]

...learning how to tackle are a lot bigger parts of winning than that.

They gave up 13 points.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

To expand upon a previous point. Remember when it was 3rd and 6 from the 8 yard line on the drive previous to the tying drive in the fourth quarter?

We of course ran the keeper, which was the only play we ran out of that formation, save 1-2 passing plays when Turner was in if I recall correctly. Of course, Buffalo knew what we were running, and brought up the run support to that side and stopped the play for no gain.

BG then calls timeout to, I assume, to talk about what play to run on the most important snap thus far. A fourth and SIX from the EIGHT yard line, where running room is tough to come by. What did we come up with during that timeout? THE SAME PLAY WE JUST RAN!

Anybody who saw this, after seeing all the other gaffes by the staff (channeling Jonnie Cochran), and still thinks Brandon is a good coach, well, I have some beautiful waterfront property in Wauseon to sell you.


Again, to those who are sick and tired of this, I encourage you to let your feelings be known to the appropriate people.

[Strouse]

I'm curious as to Freak's take on the game. My parent's have seats in front of him and he apparently left after the second delay I do believe. Freak, hope you haven't gone off and died on us!!
As for the game, it's a disgrace that the special teams have cost us so many points. The offense still looks like it's trying to find it's groove with AT at the helms. The defense looked shabby at the beginning at times, but they definately picked up the slack after the delays as well as after the half. I'll agree with the statement that the defense will probably be the backbone of the team.
As for the student section being full after the delays, it wasn't too full after the second one. A good majority stayed after the first delay, but a lot of them bolted after the second one to go party and probably watch the OSU-Texas game.
Overall, I'm just happy to come out of the Doyt with a win after a game like that.

[FliccGirl]

I heard on the radio on the way home that our attendance was 14,227 or something like that.

Pretty dissapointing even with a W.

wow...it looked like more than that on sebocam.

Someone need to talk to our 'people' about counting attendance.

The east side was pretty empty even before the delays. It's hard to see that side on the sebocam.

[Warthog]

Offense - We rolled up over 500 yards of offense, had three guys with over 90 yards rushing, mixed in 200 yards passing. Some good things to build on.

I am appalled at the play calling however. If a play works, you can guarantee we will run the exact same play the very next play. We were calling the plays from the stands. It was hilarious. I am sure Buffalo figured this out, but we somehow still moved the ball very well.

And I am lost about what our offense is trying to build to become. The first series we used a shotgun with two backs and drove right down the field. Winovich was in the backfield and had two big runs (same play on consecutive plays, see comments above ), but then we didn't use that formation the rest of the game. Or we put Barnes and in he is the only one in the backfield. Everyone know he can't pass so it has got to be a QB dive. Defenses should figure this out very quickly. (But again, we still dominated the line today so I don't know what to think of this.)

Defense - This defense is much improved over last year. They won the game for us today. Twice in the fourth quarter they had to stop the Bulls to give us a chance to tie the game and they did it. Last year the opponent would have just run it down our throat and ran the clock out. I am hopeful about this unit.

Dozier is a beast out there. When he gets a shot on someone, he hits, wraps up, puts the man down. I just wish he had more size.

Devon Parks is a leader. He was in guys faces in the fourth quarter. He was not going to let the defense lose this game. And he backed up his talk by embarassing the Buffalo tackle consistently in the fourth quarter.

DBs - I know these guys are young, but I can see why they are playing. They are very athletic and like to hit. I just wish they wouldn't have to make so many tackles.

Special Teams - It has reached the laughstock stage. We did nothing right. It has to say something when one of the biggest cheers came when we actually lined up in a real punt formation the first punt after the one was blocked. But then they gave a big return out of the formation. We can't win.

I' ve heard that Ellis is hurt. I hope he is because he has looked very bad. I honestly thought something was up last week because nothing looked like it was coming smooth for him. I chalked it up to being 6'5" and that kickers are generally a lot shorter then that. But maybe he looked awkward because he is hurting.

Other then that, I am done wasting time complaining about the STs. If the coach doesn't think it warrants any attention in practice to make it better, then I agree that it is not important enough for me to bitch about.

We won tonight, didn't we??? Doesn't feel like a win.

[BGDrew]

We won tonight, didn't we??? Doesn't feel like a win.

Sure as hell doesn't feel like a loss.

[hammb]

...learning how to tackle are a lot bigger parts of winning than that.

They gave up 13 points.

TO BUFFALO!

The defense played okay. Dozier & White both played pretty good games.

Still they struggled to get off the field at times. To say they played well (despite the stats) is misleading, however. As we said last week they improved in that they were in position more often. The same held true tonight. The big difference tonight was that Buffalo's players go down when you hit hem with just a shoulder and no attempt to wrap up; good players do not.

Statistically the defense played well. I can still guarantee that if you see an unnamed BG player wrap up it is either Dozier or White because nobody else grasps the concept. Those guys had good games. Parks had a good day, and Briggs looked good in his limited action. The defense definitely is improved from last year. They're faster and in the right places more often. However, despite tonight's stastical success they still don't tackle well.

Statistically it looks like we dominated, but a great deal of that was playing Buffalo. Against a good team they break those shoddy tackle attempts (as UW did last week), and I don't think we can expect to rush for 350 yards by running the same 4 running plays over and over again either against a decent team.

[Flipper]

Going into the season we all thought this was a young team that was going to have a very steep learning curve. Ok...so far the season's playing out that way...what's the big suprise?

We have true freshmen playing all over the place and a bunch of redshirts and soph's with realatively little game experience manning some key spots. We can talk all we want about how we should just blow teams like Buffalo away, but we aren't in a position to assume wins over anybody at this point.

We shouldn't have to learn to win against Buffalo? Ok fine say that if you want ...but we had to and we did. So the learning curve might be a bit steeper than we thought. At least they handled this step.

So...let's hope a trip home to Florida will settle Rojas down a bit and we can work out some of the kinks on the ST coverage. Then we can worry about those pesky Golden Flashes.