Game Thread: Tennessee

[Falcon137]

Game has gone pretty much as expected.

The defense is really bad. It is what it is. Offense is going to be a juggernaut in MAC play. We will see if the d can catch up.

I will be interested to see what Purdue does vs Marshall. Wouldn't be surprised to see them give 50 + points up until conference play begins. It would be surprising to see a defense worse than the one BG trots out. Tennessee was not good offensively last year.

[BGSU33]

I'll be surprised if this team wins a non-conference game this year.

If this is the defense (and special teams) we're gonna see all year, I'm concerned about even the MAC.

[aglovebgsu]

But as Babers said last year before the Homecoming game, it doesn't matter how many points the defense allows, as long as the offense scores one more. I hate that mentality (even though its true), because I truly believe that good defense wins championships.

[gmartin]

Memphis put up 49 points so far and they still have 26 min left.

[Falcon137]

1 more point is all it takes. But, for how good this offense is, the defense is worse. It's going to take A LOT of points for this team to win games.

For anyone who was optimistic that a bad defense who lost 4 guys to the NFL would be better......this was a rude awakening. Short on talent on that side of the ball.

Frustrating football.

[jpfalcon09]

But as Babers said last year before the Homecoming game, it doesn't matter how many points the defense allows, as long as the offense scores one more. I hate that mentality (even though its true), because I truly believe that good defense wins championships.

It's simply stupid to assume your offense will score every time they have the ball. Judging from the first game however may need to.

[cameron]

It's a shame Babers dismantled the championship defense he inherited. Can you image how great this team would be with Clawson's defense and Babers offense?

[ikenyon]

Sick to my stomach.

557 yards of offense and can't cover a 22-point spread.

Completely realize this is the best team they'll play all year, and they'll run through MAC teams. But 399 rushing yards and 6 TDs is exactly why this team will NEVER accomplish anything other than a MAC title. It's a nice gimmick team. That's all.

Have allowed 161 carries for 1278 yards and 19 TDs in 3 games against power 5 schools the past two years with Babers as head coach.

You're NEVER going to win an upset game when your defense is that bad. It's pathetic.

Even more embarrassing when you consider the defense this team had two years ago.

[Falcon137]

As bad as the defense is...

The offense only scored 30 points. The most alarming thing is the amount of penalties, which just seem to go along with how Babers operates.

We'll see how the rest of the non conference goes, but I imagine a bunch of games exactly like tonight. Same for the good teams from the west, this team is good on offense, but not good enough to make up for how bad the defense is.

[OhioVol]

Good game Falcons. Your offense is definitely something special. Good luck the rest of this year.

Edit: I do appreciate the warm welcome received here.

[Falcon137]

Tennessee is a good football team. But, nothing special.

Simply put, this may be the worst BG defense in the past 30 years. Hard to believe how far they've fallen in 2 years.

[hammb]

The defense was fine today. They got enough stops for us to win. We lost because of special teams miscues and way too many penalties...most of which were on offense. Oh yeah we also had drops and missed open passes in the first quarter that put us in a deep hole from the get go.

Although the one thing I continue to worry about is that this style of football is supposed to force turnovers and we didn't come close to causing one today. We got a few stops, which was nice, but we need to turn the ball over to win...especially against a team like Tennessee.

I absolutely love this brand of football but not if you cannot keep the penalties to a reasonable level. Defense is pointless for Mac teams...you're never going to build a defense good enough to stop a team like that from running on you so I'd much rather focus on offense. My issue is still with the complete lack of discipline by the team and Babers himself. Tough to overcome that against an sec team.

[MarkL]

OK final game thoughts ...

- The offense is good. Scary good. This is the type of offense we were hoping to see last year. Every MAC defensive coordinator is currently pulling hair out / crapping pants / pick your favorite expression. There is no defense in this conference that can hang with our receivers all game long.
- Travis Greene. I hope he's OK. I really hope he's OK. If he's not, we'll be fine with our depth of tailbacks but he gives something extra that nobody else does. I so want to see him back next week and set our career rushing record.
- Matt Johnson looked incredible. He torched their defense all night long. You can only hit so many deep throws in a day and he hit a ton of them. If he had connected on another deep throw or two in the fourth quarter, this one would have been much closer.
- The fumble on the Johnson to Moore exchange and the 14 point swing stank. Take that away and we lose by 15 to an SEC contender. I'll take that every day of the week. Which leads me to ......
- The defense. Let me say this without hearing moaning and groaning. All the doom and gloom on the board about the D - you all are overreacting and let me explain.
.... - We just played the best offense we'll play all year. We just played the best offensive line we'll play all year (except maybe Purdue - they return their entire O line from last year and they have a 400+ guy).
.... - Our D played hard. They played with effort. The schemes were good. Already I can say much more than I could last year at this time.
.... - There are two main problems with the D ....
....... - physicality. They are talented, yes, but they were not physically imposing enough.
....... - experience. You saw young mistakes - overpursuing on zone reads, a few cases of losing receivers in the zone, etc. These are issues we saw in 2010 and 2011 that we didn't see in 2012 with an experienced defense.
.... - My concern about this game came true - that Tennessee would use the ground game to pull away in the fourth quarter.
.... - When we play MAC offenses, I don't expect to see the opposing offensive line pushing our defensive line five and six yards back each play.
.... - The defense will improve as the year goes on. Don't be stunned if the defense puts in a phenomenal effort these next three non-conf games. I know we're looking at some good offensive lines but we're not looking at upcoming teams with Tennessee-talent offensive lines plus one of the nation's best power backs plus an up-and-coming speed back plus a legit SEC-player-of-the-year-contender dual threat QB.
.... - In short don't write the defense off yet. And don't write off the team because of the defense yet. This is one game.
- And special teams ...
.... Tate's blocked kick was set up by a bulls**t no-call PI and a bulls**t 15 yard penalty. Don't hold that against him. That whole series pissed me off so much. Home cooking if I've ever seen it.
.... The kick and punt return defenses were worrisome to say the least. But again we won't be seeing such complete ST units again this year. We'll see great athletes returning kicks and punts but we won't see great athletes returning with such great athletes blocking for them again this year.
.... Rhodes taking the ball out of the end zone and out of bounds was dumb but I love the effort and passion. It's like when a player gets a 15 yard penalty for a late hit out of bounds when the player is playing hard. You hate to see the penalty but you love seeing the effort.
.... The Rhodes mistake is correctable. The rest of the ST issues I hope will be non-issues when we are not playing Tennessee.
.... In the three phases of the game, ST is the one where you see overall team depth and athleticism the most and where you see the deltas of team depth and team athleticism the most. I know I've said it several times but I'll say it again, we will not see such a complete team again this season.

Overall a few quick thoughts ...
- I'm overall .... really happy with what I saw. The offense looks incredible. The defense looks so much better than last year (setting the bar low here, I know) and I liked the schemes (in other words we didn't play soft-zone prevent all damn game like last year). You saw young mistakes and a lack of physicality but the effort is so encouraging.
- The lack of discipline is worrisome. That was an issue the first half of last year. I hope Babers and/or Kingston put the foot down on it.
- Matt Johnson could put up Heisman-esque numbers this year.
- To the rest of the MAC ... good luck. This looks like it could be a championship team. I just can't help but think if we played the game we did today against, say, Akron, we would have won by at least two possessions.

[FlyingBurrito4]

Tackling is fundamental and this team hasn't been able to do it since Babers took over. Everything else is an excuse. No one could wrap up and every single time it turned a minimal gain into a big gain.

Every high school team I've watched this year has been a better tackling team.

[MarkL]

Memphis put up 49 points so far and they still have 26 min left.

Memphis is playing the mighty Bears of Missouri State. Missouri State went 4-8 last year and finished on a 5 game losing streak including giving up 32, 45, and 38 in the final 3. I can't really see the applicability here.