Thoughts after Maryland

[jpfalcon09]

The stacked non-conference slate may end up being a blessing in disguise to help elevate some players to higher levels against better competition. It feels good that BG not only scored more points on Tennessee than Oklahoma did in regulation, but to also follow that up with a better effort on the road against Maryland.

Matt Johnson can flat out ball, and it's still disappointing he ended up injured last season. BG likely win 2-3 extra games if he's healthy. He should end up breaking the single season passing and TD record.

WR's are the deepest in FBS. Robbie Rhodes finally seems to be getting inserted within the offense more which is only going to help out MJ in moving the ball. Roger Lewis is a man.

Fred Coppet is a better pure runner than Travis Greene. His added weight this offseason has made him a complete runner and it seemed the coaching staff recognized that against Maryland as he saw more snaps in the second half.

Penalties need to be cleaned up as Maryland was able to get stops and extend drives from undisciplined play. Some calls were questionable, but the coaching staff needs to hammer home to the players that the showboating can be saved for the sidelines.

Finally, major props to Brian Ward for coaching up the defense. It's amazing how much better the D looked Saturday having an extra week to learn the system.

Hopefully the Doyt is packed on Saturday but with O$U playing at 3:30, I'm leery about that.

[Schadenfreude]

The stacked non-conference slate may end up being a blessing in disguise to help elevate some players to higher levels against better competition.

This is an interesting question. On the one hand, you could argue that Bowling Green might be 2-0 right now if we had scheduled an FCS for our home opener, as was the original plan. But I don't think this team would have grown as much as they have by playing Tennessee and Maryland back to back.

Every game from here on out is winnable. Memphis could beat us -- they looked scary good against Kansas last night -- but you can't count these Falcons out against anyone. With this offense, the Falcons can play with anybody.

Other odds and ends:

Biggest win ever? I saw one post suggesting that this was the Falcons' biggest win ever. No. The Falcons have beaten a number of nationally-ranked teams, and Maryland is not that good. If the category is "most dominating Falcon performance ever against a legitimate member of the P5," yesterday's game is part of that conversation, but the biggest win was probably our 2002 game at home with Missouri. The final score was similar -- 51-28 -- but Missouri was never really in that game. The Falcons dominated the Tigers all day.

That said, yesterday's win was a real statement game. The whole country took notice.

How unsportsmanlike? It was hard to tell from Byrd Stadium what it was that brought on the unsportsmanlike penalties -- for celebration after Roger Lewis' touchdown and on our defense after making that stop. In particular, the flag on our defense seemed questionable, and it drew a lot of booing from Falcon fans. From the stands, I didn't see anything that seemed like taunting. I'm curious if these penalties were more obvious on television.

My take is that this is something the coaching staff will need to keep working on with these young men. But I don't think this will be a big adjustment. At least from what I saw, nothing our players did was way, way over the line. As this team gets used to making big plays, I think they'll get a handle on this. You could see that after that last penalty (leading to the last Terp touchdown), the Falcon players started checking their emotions a bit more. They sensed a chance to win, and they seemed to understand they couldn't give the officiating crew another excuse to throw a flag.

[MarkL]

The celebration flags smelled like home cooking to me. And now I'm hungry.

[hammb]

The flag on Lewis was completely ridiculous. A simple TD dance/celebration that happens in every football game at every level. I cannot believe they flagged that, except that it was a TD that gave us a lead (our first?) and the officials sensed they couldn't let BG take control.

The flag on the defense, unless I missed it, I don't know that they even showed it. They certainly never showed a replay of it, as I was watching for it. Todd Walker described it in the postgame as "Highly questionable, at best."

That said, as others have commented, it's just something we have to try and limit. I am all for playing with emotion, and I actually enjoy seeing kids enjoy themselves and celebrate a big play. But they also have to realize in these sorts of games the officials are looking for any chance to give the power conference team an edge. We cannot give them that chance.

I will say though we did get the benefit of some huge calls as the game went on. While I thought Lewis's play was perfectly okay (and soooo NFL-esque) I think they could have been justified in calling Offensive PI on his 2nd TD. The one deep pass that they called the MD WR out of bounds, and then upheld the call on replay was bogus as well. He clearly got one foot in bounds before the 2nd foot landed on the line. In college that should have been a catch. I also think there was another big call that I thought we got the benefit of, but it's escaping me right now. Overall I think these calls evened out the ones that went against us to make it a fairly evenly officiated (albeit poorly, as always) game.

My biggest takeaways from the game were as follows:

How great the defense played. The way our offense & specials struggled in the 1st half I'm surprised we were able to keep it close, but our defense was really pretty dominant for 60 minutes yesterday.

We were, and are, the better team. It's not close. If not for some terrible execution on specials and offense in the 1st half this game is a complete blowout. We were the better team in every way. They could NOT get the edge on us, our defenders were faster than their ball carriers. Our offensive speed was better than their defensive speed. Our line dominated most of the game. We had the FAR better QB. The game ended up a 21 point victory but I honestly think we should have beaten them by more...our mistakes kept them in the game for 3 quarters. VERY encouraging to see just how well our talent level stacks up with a lower tier Big10 team.

I'm not sure there are 5-10 teams in FBS that have a better total WR corps than we do. There are probably better #1 WRs out there than Lewis (although I do believe he will play on Sundays), but I don't think there are many that have the depth we do. Moore is one of the best slot WRs we've ever had here, and it's the first time we've actually had the depth to put that slot guy IN THE SLOT. That is huge. And Dieter has really looked like a great #2 WR on the other side of Lewis, with the ability to beat #2 CBs over the top. And I don't think there is anybody that can cover our other guys with their Dime corners. Quite honestly if you cannot generate big time pressure, I don't think there is a secondary in college football that can actually cover this group of WRs. It's insanely good for a MAC team, and would be quite capable in any other conference as well.

Coppet & Greene are still awesome. I've always preferred Coppet's style when we're going against P5 schools, because he runs more like an NFL back (not sure he has the speed/size combo for that level, but his style). He makes a cut and bursts through the opening. I think he's popped a big run in quite a few of our games against P5 schools. Greene is shifty as hell, and makes guys miss (especially in the MAC). The two of them make a very nice 1-2 combo, and I was very impressed how they were both able to run through tackles from MD defenders.

Most of all, without question though, the takeaway from the game is what this team is designed to do. I've been reading for the past 15 months on this board how people hate this style of football, and how we give up so many points/yards, etc. How defense wins championships, etc, etc. I have been consistent in my belief in this style of football (albeit with specific questions about Dino). Yesterday, it finally clicked and showed exactly how it's supposed to work. Put up a couple quick scores and make your opponent press. When they press, you create turnovers. Once you get up by 2 scores they are beaten down because they know they cannot come back when you score every time. And most importantly when the 4th quarter rolls around you are running circles around them because you practice/play at a pace that they are not accustomed, nor conditioned, to. Even a Big10 team that should have greater depth than us couldn't do a thing yesterday; they're simply not capable of playing at that pace for 60 minutes. We are.

I need to see DIno clean up the special teams units, even if it means putting some starters out there. I need to see Dino get through to his team that we cannot take these boneheaded penalties. I need to see Dino's offense start showing up in the 1st quarter as well, because that is where you'll get the easy cruising victories to come from. But I have the utmost belief in this style of football, and I don't think it's a coincidence at all that we go to this type of football and we A) have a wealth of WRs that many power 5 teams would kill for, and B) we have beaten at least one P5 foe in consecutive years after going 0-fer the Clawson era.

[Schadenfreude]

The celebration flags smelled like home cooking to me. And now I'm hungry.

I thought the Big Ten and the MAC used refs from the same officiating group, the Collegiate Officiating Consortium. I don't really know how this works, though.