vs. South Alabama

[jpfalcon09]

Falcons open a 15-point dog at home. Going to be a tough test against a fairly good USA team.

Broden and Simms should be available to play which should be a much needed boost to the offense.

Looking forward to seeing live college football for the first time in nearly two years, and hopefully a lot of friendly faces.

[mbenecke]

4:00pm on ESPN+.

Gonna be a tough one, but I’m sure our guys will be excited to play at home in front of fans for the first time since 2019.

[TommyG]

Spread already jumped half a point…South Alabama is easy money.
BG looks slightly better defensively but it’s the same offense. They’ll sneak in a big play or a decent drive occasionally, but it won’t be consistent. South Alabama will pass and run. As soon as BG has to defend the field vertically and horizontally it’ll wear them down. They did do a decent job of tackling compared to what they’ve shown the last 5 years.
Tennessee is going to have a long year offensively. I think they’ll probably lose to Pitt next weekend if Milton is their QB.

[MarkL]

Looking forward to seeing live college football for the first time in nearly two years, and hopefully a lot of friendly faces.

Same for me. Also special because I'll be driving over from Virginia with my toddler to introduce her to football. Her first game! I've got more vacation time than I know what to do with due to covid nixing vacation plans.

As for the game itself. Offense needs to get the run game going. The only offense against Tennessee was McDonald, and he was the better QB that day. Flip the QBs and its 70-0. So with the offensive line not punching up a class, we'll see how the run game fares.

I've actually seen the QB Bentley play at SC. I was at the NC State game in 2017 with an SC friend of mine. He kept hyping up Bentley as some great QB. He was decidedly average in that game. I thought the NC State QB was far better. Then as it turns out, NC State had four d linemen get drafted. So it turns out Bentley played pretty well seeing as he led a late win.

[mbenecke]

If my schedule surfing and math is correct, we haven’t had a loss as close as 15 points since October 30, 2018 against Kent State, which was 2 weeks after a 7-point homecoming loss that ended the Mike Jinks era at BGSU. We’ve won 5 games since then (crazy) but we haven’t played very competitive in a loss since that time.

I think a competitive game that results in an eventual 2-score loss this weekend can still mean progress. A 35-20 type of loss, where we’re in the game but give up a score late, would be somewhat encouraging, to me. But I guess we’ll see.

[jpfalcon09]

https://247sports.com/college/south-ala ... 170296483/

Brief write-up of USA's win vs. So. Miss. this weekend. Sounds like they had similar issues running the ball.

Loeffler mentioned they have talent at QB and WR. Jaylen Tolbert is their big playmaker on the outside, he routinely turned small catches into big gains on Saturday, so another game where our secondary will likely be tested. Truly believe this is a game BG can compete in and if they execute well enough, put themselves in position to win in the 4th quarter.

[Schadenfreude]

Beating Southern Mississippi, a program that's been around a good while, had to be satisfying for South Alabama. This might be even more of a challenge than we anticipated.

[MarkL]

Loeffler said in his press conference the spread out offense we ran with success against TN is not the main way forward but rather the only way of success against that defense. So for this game I'm looking forward to a) will we see more power sets than spread sets and b) will it work when not going up against an SEC size and caliber defensive front seven.

[hammb]

Loeffler said in his press conference the spread out offense we ran with success against TN is not the main way forward but rather the only way of success against that defense. So for this game I'm looking forward to a) will we see more power sets than spread sets and b) will it work when not going up against an SEC size and caliber defensive front seven.

I'm sorry but this is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've heard a coach say in quite awhile.

We did this one thing and actually resulted in some success. But we won't do that against other teams, because they're not as good as our opponent last week.

WTF?

POWER FOOTBALL IS DEAD. Get the eff over it coach, and move on. IF you can't move on in your philosophy then please move the hell on in your career. This is simply ridiculous.

For a couple drives there in the 2nd quarter I ALMOST thought we had an offensive coach on staff that had seen offensive football in the past decade. Guess not.

[MarkL]

I think the reason that offense is not the way forward is we don't have the receivers to support it for more than a drive here and there. To run that type of offense you need explosive receivers. The only receiver that I can remember catching anything was Osborne. It was backs and TEs making catches and that's not sustainable, and it's not workable against a fast set of DBs.

If we had a deeper set of receivers I'd rather see us run something similar to what worked against TN also.

[roguewarrior]

Loeffler said in his press conference the spread out offense we ran with success against TN is not the main way forward but rather the only way of success against that defense. So for this game I'm looking forward to a) will we see more power sets than spread sets and b) will it work when not going up against an SEC size and caliber defensive front seven.

I'm sorry but this is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've heard a coach say in quite awhile.

We did this one thing and actually resulted in some success. But we won't do that against other teams, because they're not as good as our opponent last week.

WTF?

POWER FOOTBALL IS DEAD. Get the eff over it coach, and move on. IF you can't move on in your philosophy then please move the hell on in your career. This is simply ridiculous.

For a couple drives there in the 2nd quarter I ALMOST thought we had an offensive coach on staff that had seen offensive football in the past decade. Guess not.

You are correct, and I thought the same when he said it.
! We have two tights on the field by design, most of the time. Our fastest offensive player runs faux jet sweeps mostly, instead of running everyone off on the outside. We are two years away from a dominant deep O-line, so let’s run a BS power offense, with no chance to run it down anyone’s throat?!?. Way to adapt to your personnel….. ugh. And, our OC cant get the plays in fast enough, so Loeffler still making calls.

Did anyone notice that we had two delay of game infractions / panic time outs trying to punt? Also, he has gone for it inside the 50 on 4th down and failed about 5 times since he’s been here…. Putting our D against the wall every time.

[MarkL]

I'm willing to see how the offense goes against South Alabama as that's pretty similar to MAC caliber defense. But I too have concerns about running a power scheme without a power offensive line. It feels a bit like the problem Rich Rodriguez had at Michigan. Had he run a west coast style offense he may have been successful. But round peg and square hole ended up being disastrous, the square hole being the pro style players he inherited.

[kdog27]

Loeffler said in his press conference the spread out offense we ran with success against TN is not the main way forward but rather the only way of success against that defense. So for this game I'm looking forward to a) will we see more power sets than spread sets and b) will it work when not going up against an SEC size and caliber defensive front seven.

I'm sorry but this is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've heard a coach say in quite awhile.

We did this one thing and actually resulted in some success. But we won't do that against other teams, because they're not as good as our opponent last week.

WTF?

POWER FOOTBALL IS DEAD. Get the eff over it coach, and move on. IF you can't move on in your philosophy then please move the hell on in your career. This is simply ridiculous.

For a couple drives there in the 2nd quarter I ALMOST thought we had an offensive coach on staff that had seen offensive football in the past decade. Guess not.

Yeah a step forward to turn around and take 2 steps back. Power offense isn’t how you win at any level anymore.

I’m going have to see it to believe to back this philosophy.

[factman]

Should have probably ask Gene Chizik before we hired him!

[jpfalcon09]

Yeah, jury is still out for me too. Our receivers don't have the explosiveness to run a pure spread, but BG can still run 11 personnel and maximize their TE ability. I guess we'll see Saturday how much success Loeffler's scheme will have.