GAME ON

[FalconTurf]

My thoughts as I arrive home:
The left side of their O-line dominated the right side of our defense. Any time they wanted yards they pounded that side are were rarely denied.
The took advantage of soft coverage in our secondary 5-15 yards at a time on outs.
When they wanted to go deep their receivers out muscled our DBs every time.
Our kick returning worked their butts off with cuts and spins and scrapping for every last yard to get out to the 20 while we again could not contain the opposition.
Our punting started strong but faded as the leg was worn out as the game went on.
Our receivers never make it to the sticks on 3rd down for lack of play calling or execution while the opposition picks up the necessary yardage time and again.
Poorly thrown balls or bad hands way too often.

It seems we weren't as athletic, physical or as strong. Did the players give in? Were they not trained properly? Are they not in a system they can succeed in? Last year with similar talent I felt we got more production down the stretch. There definitely needs to be some adjustment in the off season because as I see it we had the 5th place team in the MAC and that's not where the we want to see the program.

[Critical Thinker]

I paid $5 total for a game ticket AND a seat on a bus, and it wasn't even worth that. I was 90% certain we'd lose, but I thought the experience would still be fun anyway. Nope. I was on my phone the whole time checking for hockey updates; I really hope they didn't show me on TV. What an awful trip.

[MacGuy]

It is early to talk 2015 but I say our 2015 record will be determined by offensive progression. If the offense does not progress, pencil in UMass to win the east.

I'll say it tonight: I think we win the East again.

We lose a bunch on defense next year and Johnson missed this entire season which was expected to be key for next year as Baber said it takes a QB two years to learn his system. Toss that out - Johnson is still on crutches and who knows if he will even be able to play next spring. Everything was lined up for is this year to repeat and it's slowly fell apart all season long. Tonight the bottom fell out. Badly. I think we'll see a new team from the East next year. BG will be left to pick up the pieces and with the style of play and inconsistency across the board, I just don't see us overcoming it.

I'm wondering how Johnson can still be on crutches. Anyone know where he had his surgery done?

[gmartin]

A broken hip takes about 6 months to heal plus rehab. It's only been 4 months since his surgery so I am not surprised to see him on crutches.

[guest44]

It takes a serious trainwreck to have a team quit on the coach on both senior day and in the MAC Championship.

[Flipper]

Did they quit? Was it a lack of effort on the field or a lack of preparation that made it easy to exploit our schemes. NIU went 10-19 on third down...a number of those were 3rd and long....I don't think guys play hard on 1st and 2nd down and then break out the lawn chairs on 3rd down. NIU seemed to make the right call to pick up those 8-10 yards when they needed them pretty much all night.

The offense is a mess....our QB is throwing screens and floating the ball 40 yards downfield to the sidelines. Nothing with any zip on it to the middle of the field. The line struggles in pass protection.

Our DC was never a DC before he went EIU....he coached DB's and WR's. Our 1st offensive coordinator was a HS coach before working at EIU for two years. The other one was an OL coach for one year at EIU and he worked in the JUCO ranks as an OL coach before that. Are these guys experienced enough to go head to head with FBS coaches?

[guest44]

Wasn't our DC on a Akron staff that got fired? Either way, I've never seen a team go from champs, to getting trucked in games like this team has. You either have to get out schemed so much or quit on the coach to get worked like that. Or both.

[BGSU33]

It is early to talk 2015 but I say our 2015 record will be determined by offensive progression. If the offense does not progress, pencil in UMass to win the east.

I'll say it tonight: I think we win the East again.

We lose a bunch on defense next year and Johnson missed this entire season which was expected to be key for next year as Baber said it takes a QB two years to learn his system. Toss that out - Johnson is still on crutches and who knows if he will even be able to play next spring. Everything was lined up for is this year to repeat and it's slowly fell apart all season long. Tonight the bottom fell out. Badly. I think we'll see a new team from the East next year. BG will be left to pick up the pieces and with the style of play and inconsistency across the board, I just don't see us overcoming it.

I'm wondering how Johnson can still be on crutches. Anyone know where he had his surgery done?

I was told he did not even have the surgery at all. This season was costly in more ways than one with him losing out on it. Even if he recovers fully it's going to almost be like hitting the reset button because he missed out on this entire season trying to learn and run this offense. It is vital that he can go in the spring. If not, well...

[BGSU33]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how a team picked as a runaway choice to repeat as MAC champs is now a bowl loss away from finishing .500. Last season feels like a decade ago.

[kdog27]

.

[jpfalcon09]

The coaches refused to make any adjustments late in the season. Everyone watched tape on our offense and saw how vanilla it was and game planned around that. The final five games on offense were carbon copies of one another. As a result, the defense was put in bad situations against good teams and wore down.

As one fan said last night, how much money does Dino owe Jimmy Garopollo?

[footballguy51]

Somebody mentioned the Country Club mentality and lack of discipline. I go back to one instance when we first hired the guy as a sign of bad things to come, because he destroyed in 10 seconds what took years to create.

Babers walks into the team meeting room to meet the team for the first time. He walks in, and the team quiets down, sits up straight, and is listening for him to speak. They are giving him respect since he is the coach. His response is, "This isn't the military. You all need to relax." Welcome to the result.

[Falcon Commander]

four years to build the program and four months to ruin it....

[Falcon137]

This isn't even rock bottom. A potential game vs a good MWC team in Boise or potential matchup with La Tech or Marshall in Boca or the Bahamas.

Please MAC offices, send us to the Camilla Bowl. Let the MAC West play the best teams.

I still think they'll be better next year. But with the non conference schedule and Toledo and WMU crossovers 6-6, 5-7 is highly likely.

Simply shocking how the entire team has regressed from week 3 to now.

[FalconTurf]

Did they quit? Was it a lack of effort on the field or a lack of preparation that made it easy to exploit our schemes. NIU went 10-19 on third down...a number of those were 3rd and long....I don't think guys play hard on 1st and 2nd down and then break out the lawn chairs on 3rd down. NIU seemed to make the right call to pick up those 8-10 yards when they needed them pretty much all night.

The offense is a mess....our QB is throwing screens and floating the ball 40 yards downfield to the sidelines. Nothing with any zip on it to the middle of the field. The line struggles in pass protection.

Our DC was never a DC before he went EIU....he coached DB's and WR's. Our 1st offensive coordinator was a HS coach before working at EIU for two years. The other one was an OL coach for one year at EIU and he worked in the JUCO ranks as an OL coach before that. Are these guys experienced enough to go head to head with FBS coaches?

I think one thing we misjudge at BG and around the MAC is the level of coaching that occurs in the conference. If you are not prepared to coach at this level everyone will find out and now we know. Hope their learning curve is sharp.