Why?

[Rollo83]

Sitting in Dix Stadium today watching an impressive BG performance, I couldn't help but ask myself...

...why it took until game 7 for the offensive gameplan to include a running game?

...why with under four minutes in the first half, and with all the momentum in the world going BG's way, would we try an onside kick and give the Flashes the ball at our 45? Kent scores two minutes later and goes into the half only down 14-13.

...why we kick short on kick-offs when we are doing a good job of covering the returns? Kent declined the penalty when we would kick it out of bounds and we would have to re-kick five yards back. Makes no sense to me.

...why this team shows up some weeks ready to play and some weeks it does not? That has to be a coaching problem. This win tells me Brandon's not the guy as much as last week's defeat did. He has the talent. This is why guys like Urban stand out. They come in and get the most out of their talent.

...why this passing attack has such trouble now finding completions? How can we throw the ball all over Minnestoa nd Michigan State and go into Kent and have trouble throwing the ball? Corey's touchdown in the only we got easy today out of the passing game. The trick play doesn't count.

...why our offense still can't be balanced? We either have Tyler passing for 300 or Geter running for 200.

...why our band didn't make the short trip to Kent on a fantastic fall day?

[TG1996]

...why can't you be happy with a "BG football" win? Yes, it wasn't a perfect game, but it was a 180 degree turnaround from last week at this time and there is credit to be given.

[BGFalconfromCincy]

...why can't you be happy with a "BG football" win?

because what fun would that be

[FMBfan07]

...why our band didn't make the short trip to Kent on a fantastic fall day?

there was a Wind Symphony band concert at 8pm. Many students in the marching band are in the Wind Symphony. Dr. Hayward told us she tried to get the band to an away game this season. But was not possible. Either to far, school doesn't want us because it is their homecoming or other event going on, or band concerts that were already scheduled that day. The schedule for the band concerts comes out way before the football schedule. Hope that answers your question.

[daspollak]

You can't always have a balanced offense. Sometimes you have to play with the hand you are given. Today Geter was able to find some holes and had several long runs. Next week they may stuff, but Sheehan could connect deep a couple of times. Be happy when the offense is able to move the ball.

[BGSUFootballFan]

Sitting in Dix Stadium today watching an impressive BG performance, I couldn't help but ask myself...

...why it took until game 7 for the offensive gameplan to include a running game?

...why with under four minutes in the first half, and with all the momentum in the world going BG's way, would we try an onside kick and give the Flashes the ball at our 45? Kent scores two minutes later and goes into the half only down 14-13.

...why we kick short on kick-offs when we are doing a good job of covering the returns? Kent declined the penalty when we would kick it out of bounds and we would have to re-kick five yards back. Makes no sense to me.

...why this team shows up some weeks ready to play and some weeks it does not? That has to be a coaching problem. This win tells me Brandon's not the guy as much as last week's defeat did. He has the talent. This is why guys like Urban stand out. They come in and get the most out of their talent.

...why this passing attack has such trouble now finding completions? How can we throw the ball all over Minnestoa nd Michigan State and go into Kent and have trouble throwing the ball? Corey's touchdown in the only we got easy today out of the passing game. The trick play doesn't count.

...why our offense still can't be balanced? We either have Tyler passing for 300 or Geter running for 200.

...why our band didn't make the short trip to Kent on a fantastic fall day?

Let me try to take this one question at a time...

1. I have no real excuse for why GB waited this long to break out the running game, although it did make sense to throw the ball all day on Minn, MSU, and BC. Still he is one week late in my book, because we couldn't have run the ball that well on our other competition. The good part of it is how well it worked because everyone in the world thought we were going to throw the ball 50 times again. Kind of like in poker when you bluff 3 times in a row with nothing, so that later on you get called when you have the nuts. I'm not saying GB was setting up other teams, but he sure had Kent State fooled.

2. I said it in the chat and I'll say it again, the onside kick was a good call. People please stop judging on only the outcome. What you said in "BG has all the momentum in world" is exactly why he chose to do that. It was a gutsy call and if we get it, we can bury their asses before halftime. It also shows you still have confidence in the redzone D in case we don't get it, but what he was really trying to do was take the momentum that we had and use it to our adavantage. Good call, just didn't work out.

3. The kickoffs short can be good for a change of pace. Certainly the penalty cost us 30yards on the offsides, bc we had them stopped at the 12 and the next time they got to the 42. Thats not GB's fault a guy made a bonehead play of being offsides. Heck at least he was excited to get down there and take someones head off. Kent seemed more scared of our Roger Williams than I have ever seen any team be scared of ANY part of out ST's unit. That's a good sign folks.

4. This one you have a good point on. There is no excuse for coming out flat and playing like a bag of shat last week. Still it had to be a long week of practice and we really fought through adversity and came back this week. No excuse for last week, but be glad it didn't repeat this week. Hopefully we'll see this kind of intensity the rest of the way out. The verdict is still out on this one..

5. First off the trick play does count and it did work. GREAT CALL and great execution as well. Second I was saying 3 weeks ago that Glaud should be our QB and I was getting laughed at on here, bc TS was supposedly the next Omar. I'm sorry but since he sprained his shoulder TS hasn't even been playing like the Minnesota TS, let alone Omar. Oh and Minnesota lost yesterday to North Dakota State 27-21 in regulation. They are now 1-7 overall. Glaud gives us a dual threat QB that can run the offense the way it was meant to be run. Sure TS has a bigger arm, but AG seems to make better choices with the ball... ex: not holding on to it for 10seconds, not taking a lot of sacks, not throwing it to the deep guy on 3rd and 3 etc.


6. Our offense was pretty close to being balanced. It got skewed at the end because we had the lead on the road in a big game. Also Geter was running like crazy, so of course we are going to stick with what is working. I go off of play calls, not total yards as balance. I know I know, color me insane.

7. I have no idea why the band wasn't there, but I'm sure other can tell you that one!

[Rollo83]

I said it in the chat and I'll say it again, the onside kick was a good call. People please stop judging on only the outcome. What you said in "BG has all the momentum in world" is exactly why he chose to do that. It was a gutsy call and if we get it, we can bury their asses before halftime. It also shows you still have confidence in the redzone D in case we don't get it, but what he was really trying to do was take the momentum that we had and use it to our adavantage. Good call, just didn't work out.

No BAD call all the way around. You have an eight point lead with 3+ minutes to go in the half. Why give them a short field to score before halftime? The onside kick works what about less than 25% of the time? And, they had their hands team on the field...the were expecting it. Far to risky to take a shot at that point. You gave them the momentum going in half time.

I know the trick play counts on the scoreboard. My point was that when evaluating the passing game yesterday you really have to throw out the throwback pass in the satistics. Great call though!

[BGGrad01]

Re: the onside kick: when I was watching the game, I thought Coach Brandon had lost his mind. Looking back on it, I like the decision.

We were kicking off from the 45 yard line with the following scenarios:

1. Vrvillo kicks it through the uprights, not allowing a return. KSU ball on the 20 with time to get down the field before the half.

2. Vrvillo kicks it to the goal line allowing a KSU return. Our return coverage is not very good, so they could have busted one. I would say, on average, they get it around the 20.

3. We go with the onside kick. It has to go 10 yards, so the worst that happens is KSU ball on their 45. That's what happened. We had a shot at the loose ball, correct? We executed the play pretty well, unfortunately Kent was somewhat prepared and came up with the loose ball. I would say those 25 yards were worth the risk given that the defense had two 3 and outs at that point and had not allowed KSU to get into the end zone.

Even though KSU scored on the following possession, I like the gutsy call.

[BleedOrange]

...why can't you be happy with a "BG football" win? Yes, it wasn't a perfect game, but it was a 180 degree turnaround from last week at this time and there is credit to be given.

Why can't he be happy with a simple BG football win? Hmmm. Good question. Let me take a crack at that one.

Because we're inconsistent as hell, so this win is a vicissitude that doesn't represent a new trend? Because we're generally not competing at the level we should be? Because he sees recurring, systemic problems that hint at continued mediocrity and recurrences of last week? Because he wants the MAC championship contender that we should have but currently don't?

[hammb]

Let me try to take this one question at a time...

1. I have no real excuse for why GB waited this long to break out the running game, although it did make sense to throw the ball all day on Minn, MSU, and BC. Still he is one week late in my book, because we couldn't have run the ball that well on our other competition. The good part of it is how well it worked because everyone in the world thought we were going to throw the ball 50 times again. Kind of like in poker when you bluff 3 times in a row with nothing, so that later on you get called when you have the nuts. I'm not saying GB was setting up other teams, but he sure had Kent State fooled.

Maybe it's me being a pessimist, but when I see a performance like today this is the very first thing that comes to mind as well. We actually run the ball and had great success. Hell, we've had success all year, Geter was averaging over 5.0 ypc coming into the game. We just chose not to do it and it makes no sense. Running the ball isn't the best way for us to beat the Big 10 teams, but it absolutely is against our MAC schedule. No clue why we didn't try this a week earlier.

2. I said it in the chat and I'll say it again, the onside kick was a good call. People please stop judging on only the outcome. What you said in "BG has all the momentum in world" is exactly why he chose to do that. It was a gutsy call and if we get it, we can bury their asses before halftime. It also shows you still have confidence in the redzone D in case we don't get it, but what he was really trying to do was take the momentum that we had and use it to our adavantage. Good call, just didn't work out.

I agree it was a good call. You had the extra yardage from the penalty & the defense had been doing a pretty good job. Personally, I thought it was one of the better, ballsier calls in Coach Brandon's career.

4. This one you have a good point on. There is no excuse for coming out flat and playing like a bag of shat last week. Still it had to be a long week of practice and we really fought through adversity and came back this week. No excuse for last week, but be glad it didn't repeat this week. Hopefully we'll see this kind of intensity the rest of the way out. The verdict is still out on this one..

This is what I've been saying for 4 years now. The wins out number the losses in Brandon's tenure, but we've been too damn inconsistent for years. I'm not surprised we won today, because I expected we'd come out ready to play after the embarrassing lost last week. The problem with this staff is that we don't come out that way on a consistent basis. It's a fundamental problem with the staff, and one good game doesn't change that one bit. We've had good games before.

5. First off the trick play does count and it did work. GREAT CALL and great execution as well. Second I was saying 3 weeks ago that Glaud should be our QB and I was getting laughed at on here, bc TS was supposedly the next Omar. I'm sorry but since he sprained his shoulder TS hasn't even been playing like the Minnesota TS, let alone Omar. Oh and Minnesota lost yesterday to North Dakota State 27-21 in regulation. They are now 1-7 overall. Glaud gives us a dual threat QB that can run the offense the way it was meant to be run. Sure TS has a bigger arm, but AG seems to make better choices with the ball... ex: not holding on to it for 10seconds, not taking a lot of sacks, not throwing it to the deep guy on 3rd and 3 etc.

I think if you're trying to evaluate the passing game it is fair to discount the trick play in that instance. It counts in the final stats, yes, but it is not a good indication of our passing game's success on the day. The thing that has frustrated me with TS the past few weeks is his accuracy. He was terribly inaccurate last year, and in the first couple weeks this year it looked as though he had improved greatly on that. The past few games, though, it has been back to what we saw last year. Perhaps it's the shoulder injury, I don't know, but it's been a problem that has really limited our passing attack. As for Glaud I've said on here numerous times that this offense is designed for a rushing threat QB who can throw a little as opposed to a true passer. I think Glaud gives us that. He has looked pretty good in his time this year, but I think they've annointed Tyler their QB and leader...they don't want to undermine that at this point. I can respect that, but I hope Glaud is given a fair shot at winning the job in the offseason.

6. Our offense was pretty close to being balanced. It got skewed at the end because we had the lead on the road in a big game. Also Geter was running like crazy, so of course we are going to stick with what is working. I go off of play calls, not total yards as balance. I know I know, color me insane.

Balanced is based in the playcalling, not the yardage. In that regard we were pretty close to balanced when you take out the sacks.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

The onside kick was the right call. Kent wasn't ready for it, and we almost got it. Just a bad bounce. I loved that call as it happened. It's weird that on days like these, Brandon takes almost every opportunity to express his ballsiness, and on other days it looks like he's completely allergic to risk of any kind.

Yet again, the best "word" I can think of to describe a Brandon-coached team is Schizo.

[Flipper]

The onside kick was a good call. The FG was a good call. Simmering within this debate is the one aspect of the anti-Brandon criticisms that annoys me the most. When we lose, he gets criticized. When we win, he gets criticized because we're inconsistent. That seems to put the man in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" box.

I try to take as long a view of things as I can. We have a team that on balance has done well this year. We've had really good games like yesterday's and really bad games like the previous two weeks. If we continue to play like we did yesterday I think we can win out. Going into Kent and hanging those kind of yards on that defense and stuffing that running game on 4th and short twice in the red zone is a heck of an accomplishment. Winning out won't really do much good in the east if Miami wins out in their divisional games, but it would probably get us into one of the three bowls the MAC has ties to. 9-3 and a bowl game is historically a pretty good year for BG football.

One thing I'm really encouraged by is the overall attiude of the team. They got a bit lazy in 2005 and they admit to packing it in in 2006. This year's team seems to have the toughness and swagger back.

So far as the offense goes, I think part of the reason they were hesitant to run the ball a bunch was the lack of faith in Bullock and Macon and they maybe didn't have much confidence in the true freshman, Willie G. Willie showed that he can get the yards running the edges and he can get them between the tackles. I think he earned more chances and I suspect the coaches will be more comfortable calling his number going forward. I wish to heck that Bullock would take care of business and do what he needs to to win back the coaches' confiddence...it'd be great to have a 230llb TB for a change of pace with Willie G.

Going forward...if you aren't going to use Bullock, we face real problem here at RB. Ransom will be back for one or two years, Geter is a freshman and Woolridge is redshirting. That's three RB's who are all on the small side. Perhaps we should just get it over with and make AT a RB? That buy us another year to recruit a good sized TB. Glaud looks like a more than capable back up and there's always the option of using AT at QB in an emergency should Sheehan and Glaud falter or get hurt at the same time.

[orangeandbrown]

I agree. We went on the road and won the game. We adjusted to the fact we needed to run, ran some trick plays to get it done, and drilled a 49 yd FG that put the game back to two scores. No complaints. The onside kick didn't work. So, what, he's 3 out of 4? Sounds OK.

Obviously, we can still improve. But we needed a win and came up with it Saturday. I hope we do it for the next two weeks at home.

[Schadenfreude]

Maybe it's me being a pessimist, but when I see a performance like today this is the very first thing that comes to mind as well. We actually run the ball and had great success. Hell, we've had success all year, Geter was averaging over 5.0 ypc coming into the game. We just chose not to do it and it makes no sense. Running the ball isn't the best way for us to beat the Big 10 teams, but it absolutely is against our MAC schedule. No clue why we didn't try this a week earlier.

I like this. We actually agree that it would have been unwise to try to pound it on the ground against our Big Ten and Big East opponents.

I guess I would point out that our lack of balance also worked fine against Temple and Western Kentucky, and that even if Brandon had inklings of trying to work on the ground game against Miami, that was shredded by how far Miami got out in front.

It's obvious that our shift to the ground game caught Kent State by surprise. But I'm not ready to assume this is the magic formula we should have been using all year in conference games.

Going forward, Tyler Sheehan is going to have to somehow recover his confidence.

I agree it was a good call. You had the extra yardage from the penalty & the defense had been doing a pretty good job. Personally, I thought [the onside kick] was one of the better, ballsier calls in Coach Brandon's career.

I liked the call, but I don't think it was the ballsiest of the day.

That honor goes to the fake field goal attempt on fourth-and-two around the 20. Sinisa Vrvilo is so good, it was the equivalent of taking three points off the scoreboard in order to try a trick play.

It worked out -- Corey Partridge worked his magic, we got the first down and, later, the touchdown. But I would have taken the three points.

[Falconfreak90]

BG WON!!!! MIAMI LOST!!!! BG IS BACK IN THE RACE FOR THE EAST!

Seriously, any criticsim of the yesterday's game is irrelevent. It was a beautiful day for football and BG won a very important game. For crying out loud just enjoy it. This team is a work in progress...and things today look a whooooooooooooole lot better than a week ago at this time.

Give Coach B credit...he had a great gameplan and the players executed. When BG plays like that, they can beat a lot of teams. Getting that consistency is next. Ohio comes in with their tails between their legs...Our house....our turf. Time to get on a winning streak with 3 of our last 5 games at home.

Right now, I don't care. I am an extremely happy BG fan cuz these kids got off the mat and PUNCHED SOMEONE ELSE IN THE MOUTH. They could have folded as many here said would happen. I went back and forth all week....which team will show up?

It is one game...BUT, it was a very important game. It served notice to Kent State and the rest of the MAC that BG wasn't gonna go quietly.

Let's rip Ohio U next Saturday night and pack the Doyt...GO FALCONS