BG - Wisconsin game thread

[jpfalcon09]

When our offense does well and scores points and our defense gets some stops and makes the other guys work bit..we have a chance to win. When we don't run an effective offense and make tackles on defense, we lose. That's true if you run a wishbone..a power I..a spread...whatever offense you try to run. Not tackling ball carriers and not completing passes while you are struggling to create space for your running backs is a formula for an ass kicking...regardless of the scheme.

And can we bury this myth about last year's defense...they didn't stop anyone good either.

Disagree. Last year's defense held Mississippi State and NIU to under 30 points which is nothing to discredit. I think the Clawson staff largely schemed to the strengths of the defense as much as possible. I still don't know after four games what this year's defense scheme and strengths are. If the hopes are that the offense is going score every time they get the ball them people are sorely mistaken. My fear has become that every time the offense sputters, is the defense going to be fresh enough to get a stop? If not then we better start preparing ourselves for more repeats of today.

[Flipper]

Under 30 is a defensive benchmark?

[Dayons_Den]

If the 2013 Falcons can get clobbered by a poor Indiana team and go on to win the conference I fully believe the 2014 edition can get whacked by a very good likely Big Ten contender Wisconsin and go on to achieve goals.

[jpfalcon09]

Under 30 is a defensive benchmark?

Against an SEC school and top 15 team? Yes. It's a helluva lot better than giving up 700 yards twice in four games, one of those to which was a mediocre Conference USA team.

[Flipper]

Which gets us back to missed tackles and poor angles..neither of which have much to do with schemes.

[Globetrotter]

Which gets us back to missed tackles and poor angles..neither of which have much to do with schemes.

They do have to do with coaching.

[hammb]

Which gets us back to missed tackles and poor angles..neither of which have much to do with schemes.

They do have to do with coaching.

This is simply ridiculous. I didn't see a single coach take a bad angle or miss a tackle.

Tackling and angles are largely about instinct, talent level, and experience. And newsflash to everyone harping how the new staff has destroyed such an awesome defense: there aren't many starters from last year still standing!

[Globetrotter]

Which gets us back to missed tackles and poor angles..neither of which have much to do with schemes.

They do have to do with coaching.

This is simply ridiculous. I didn't see a single coach take a bad angle or miss a tackle.

Tackling and angles are largely about instinct, talent level, and experience. And newsflash to everyone harping how the new staff has destroyed such an awesome defense: there aren't many starters from last year still standing!

Tackling and angles are about making tackling and angles a priority in practice. Which we clearly have not done.

We returned 5 starters and 12 of 22 on the 2 deep.

[hammb]

Of those 5, only 2 played today.

And I don't think anybody makes tackling a priority in practice. Do college teams even do it? Nfl teams sure don't. Taking angles in practice is awesome against bg, but wisconsins athletes were in a different level even than indiana.

The defense sucked today, no argument there. But this overwhelming notion that Babers and company came in here and wrecked the 85 bears is getting old and just sounds like bitching for the sake of bitching. He'll we even have people now saying they didn't even enjoy the iu game which was probably one of the most exciting victories we've had in the last decade.

I don't know what the hell people want or expect. Dave clawson would probably be 2-2 right now as well.

[Globetrotter]

Of those 5, only 2 played today.

And I don't think anybody makes tackling a priority in practice. Do college teams even do it? Nfl teams sure don't. Taking angles in practice is awesome against bg, but wisconsins athletes were in a different level even than indiana.

The defense sucked today, no argument there. But this overwhelming notion that Babers and company came in here and wrecked the 85 bears is getting old and just sounds like bitching for the sake of bitching. He'll we even have people now saying they didn't even enjoy the iu game which was probably one of the most exciting victories we've had in the last decade.

I don't know what the hell people want or expect. Dave clawson would probably be 2-2 right now as well.

That's a straw man and you know it. It's not like he wrecked the 85 bears. He turned a good defense into the worst running defense the Big ten has ever seen and one of the worst, if not the worst, defenses in the country. We were 122 of 125 LAST WEEK. Giving up 569 yards per game. And we just gave up 756 yards.

This is the worst defense in the country. AND we dont seem to be improving in anyway.

[hammb]

No.

He took over a team that had 5/11ths of a good defense, changed the offensive philosophy in a way that would hamper defense greatly, lost 3 of those 5 starters already, and THEN ended up with one of the worst defenses in the country.

The players were in place to make tackles today quite a bit. They sucked due to whatever reasons, I have no fu**ing clue. I just take major issue with the attitude that Babers told them to stop trying to tackle so they can just score quicker. The announcers said repeatedly how the players were in position to make tackles and they just couldn't tackle.

Everybody wants to bitch about the defense but it's not why we lost. It's why the loss turned into a train wreck maybe, but not the reason we lost. The offense is who really shot the bed today and that's the unit I'm most annoyed with. Before the offense went to hell the defense was getting the ball back...the first 18 mins or so of the game. The defense gave up, which wasn't pleasant to see, but I doubt very much if we see a similar effort if they punch it in to make it 21-17 in the 2nd quarter.

This team is built to score points. The defenses job is to make enough plays to get the ball back in the offenses hands. They did that up until the offense couldn't keep putting up points. This really isn't that much different than if last years team had given up a quick 21-0 lead, then asking that clawson offense to try and play comeback against one of the top teams in the big ten.

It was air choice of words for the head man but I'm inclined to agree with Babers regarding the bandwagon. This team will very much be in contention for the Mac (if they can ever keep some players healthy). And I 100% believe that when he gets this thing where he wants it they can compete for national rankings. Doesn't look like it now, but this is the same style of football that turned Baylor and Oregon into perennial powerhouses. Just takes time...especially when it's a complete 180 from what we tried to do last year.

[jg4242]

I disagree STRONGLY with Babers' bandwagon comments. Unprofessional and unnecessary. He gets paid enough money to ignore what we say on this board. It doesn't matter whether the criticism is justified or not (and I think a lot if it is), he's a D1 coach now. He's got to play nice with the fans in order to get butts in the seats in this league/market.

Just ask yourself this, Coach: What would Curt Miller say?

[transfer2BGSU]

Just ask yourself this, Coach: What would Curt Miller say?

Whatever he would say, he would be stomping his foot as he was saying it!

[ikenyon]

Okay, created an account here to rant about the Wisconsin game. Have multiple issues.

First, the BG ticket office is a joke. Ordered tickets through the BG ticket office in June, told me that the group I was with would have good seats and be in the BG section. Didn't get my tickets until 72 hours before kickoff, they were in the worst section of the stadium, furthest from the field anyways, not in the BG section. Called to complain and BG basically said "You didn't donate enough money to the school to get anything better." -- the game was not a sell out. When we got the stadium, the tickets didn't even work, we had to go to two different enterences and convince the security guard that the tickets weren't fake.

But I digress, onto the game itself...

This was a pathetic, pathetic performance. We're supposed to get run over by Wisconsin. We are. And that's fine. But you're not supposed to give up 48 unanswered points in two quarters. You're not supposed to be losing 62-10 after 3 quarters. This wasn't about Wisconsin being a great team, this was about Bowling Green being absolutely atrocious.

I am a Wisconsin fan as well. Born and raised in the state. Graduated from Bowling Green but reside back in Wisconsin now. I know both of these teams inside and out. Wisconsin did not play very well. In the first quarter, Melvin Gordon fumbled. Tanner McEvoy missed multiple open receivers down field. McEvoy threw an interception. Wisconsin ended up with three turnovers (Bowling Green won the freaking turnover battle for goodness sake). This was a very sloppy game for Wisconsin.

So what happened? Bowling Green really is, just this bad right now.

We were sitting second level corner end zone, so we had a nice bird's eye view of the whole field to see plays develop. Wisconsin played basically the whole game in single man coverage with single high safety. Receivers were wide open down the field all day. Knapke missed 4-5 throws down the field that should have been long completions. He really had a rough day. That redzone interception really hurt momentum. The team was into the game at that point and that was just a really bad decision. It was a tipped ball, but would have been picked even if it wasn't, it was heading right at a Wisconsin linebacker.

The BG offense really is predicated on rhythm, stringing first downs together and forcing pace to tire out a defense and not allow sub packages. But it's impossible to do that when the QB is missing throws. Once the game got out of hand, BG had to abandon the run, and that was basically the end of the game. That's really all there is to say about the offense.

The defense though... what the hell was that? Melvin Gordon is a monster, granted. But can nobody on this team tackle? I'm not even going to dive into all the defensive miscues because what this came down to was tackling. Wisconsin had 60 carries, 644 rushing yards. There had to 25+ missed tackles during the game. Had to be.

The problem I'm starting to have with BG fanbase is this attitude that we don't need a great defense because our offense is going to score so many points. That's absolute utter lunacy. Yes, the BG offense is supposed to score points. But what does that have anything to do with not having a good defense? They're completely independent of each other. Why not just have a great offense AND a great defense? Why must a high powered offense play such a conservative, bend-but-don't break defensive philosophy? Why not try to play aggressive and force mistakes rather than let superior opponents run all over you?

The fact that people are trying to justify a defensive performance that saw Wisconsin run for 644 yards boggles my mind. There's a reason that's a big 10 record. Melvin Gordon and Tanner McEvoy combined for 24 carries, 411 yards and 6 TDs. And we're okay with this because our offense just needs to play better? Get out of here.

The Baylor philosophy isn't just about winning games 75-74. That's not at all what it's about. Little known fact... Baylor right now has the #2 scoring defense in college football. They allow 9 points per game and have allowed 3 touchdowns all season. Last year, Baylor held their opponent to 17 or less in 8 of their 14 games. They've only allowed 50 or more points once in their past 23 games. If you want to switch that to the hurry up aerial attack of a team like Texas A&M (Kevin Sumlin), they are only giving up 11.8 ppg right now (8th in the nation). The last time Texas A&M gave up 50+ was October 13, 2012. These teams aren't consistently winning in shootouts. That's not what the philosophy is supposed to be.

What are we talking about here? Fix the defense!!!!! It needs a complete overhaul in philosophy and execution. Why are we having our inexperienced cornerbacks playing 10 yards off the ball trying to tackle a heisman contending RB (Melvin Gordon) in space? That's a recipe for disaster. Exactly what happened this weekend.

Now, looking ahead to the future... the only thing I will say to soften my stance here is that this year has been a train wreck from a personnel perspective. Injuries upon injuries upon injuries. Dino has said it takes two years to fully implement his system. I think we have to remain patient and give it another year before calling for his job. Next year should be the year. Matt Johnson, Travis Greene, Fred Coppet, Roger Lewis, Ronnie Moore, Chris Gallon, Ryan Burbrink, Gehrig Dieter, Robbie Rhodes, the entire OL back. Another full offseason to perfect falcon fast. If this team isn't dominant next year, there is a problem. And they need to figure out a way to fix this defense by next season. But if we see these same types of performances a year from now, then I think it's fair to call for Dino's job. Until then, I'm willing to wait and hope that it eventually works out.

But there absolutely is reason to panic right now. Defensive efforts like we saw this weekend are unacceptable.

[kdog27]

I think most people here are in agreement with this. I know I am.