Bowling Green vs Central Michigan Recap 10/22/2022

Bowling Green Dominates CMU as Road Underdogs!

    Bowling Green ended the Saturday portion of MAC play with a beat down of the Central Michigan Chippewas. This was Coach Loeffler's first win against a rotating MAC West opponent. The Falcons finally started hot on offense, Matt McDonald looked awesome, and for the second week in a row the defense dominated. Penalties were still an issue but BGSU won the turnover battle 0-4! Bowling Green now enters the Midweek MACtion stretch needing to go 2-2 to end a 6 year bowl drought. 

photo: BGSU Athletics

1st Quarter 

    The Falcon offense got a touchdown on the opening drive for the first time since the road win over Buffalo last year. Honestly I knew this team would win because of this drive. Ta'ron Keith and the O line gashed CMU for 9 yards, then a screen to Odieu Hilaire went for 46 yards and the Falcons were flying. Some more good plays eventually led to a 4th and goal at the 1 yard line where Coach Loeffler dialed up the Harold Fannin TE sweep for a touchdown. The BG defense responded with a 3 and out, so did the CMU defense which led to a CMU 7 play, 21 yard drive, which ended in a 52 yard field goal. After another trading of punts, the BG offense started with great field position as the Demetrius Hardamon sack made the Chippewas punt from their own 13 to which Jake Rogers returned it for 27 yards. 

    The 1st quarter ended and I just knew BG had the one in their grasps. The score was just 7-3 but the Falcons were starting the 2nd quarter with great field position and the defense already looked elite.

2nd Quarter

    The 2nd quarter started with a BG field goal. The Falcons had 3rd and 9 when Coach Loeffler beautifully dialed up another screen to Hilaire which went for 23 yards. However with 3rd and 5 at the CMU 11, McDonald was sacked so out came the special teams and Mason Lawler drilled the 38 yarder to make the score 10-3. CMU then was forced to punt again by the Orange and Brown defense, to which the offense put together a nice 43 yard drive but had to punt. The Falcons got out of danger at their own 9 yard line with a Jaison Patterson 20 yard run but penalties slowed the drive down and ultimately ended it. The defense responded again with a 3 and out and this time the Falcon offense heated up again. Even after another penalty, Matty found Hilaire for a 20 yard gain, TE Christian Sims for 13, CJ Lewis for 10. Two plays later, BG had it 3rd and goal, 22 seconds left, and Matt threw his best ball of the season to find Tyrone Broden in the endzone to put BG up 17-3. CMU ran just one play before the half ended but Karl Brooks got the sack. 

    The 2nd quarter saw more great defense, the offense get another 10 points, and left everyone feeling good with a 14 point lead on the road. Quick starts are crucial for road games and the Falcons had a great first half. 

3rd Quarter

    The Falcons could not have started the 2nd half much worse. Two kickoff penalties led CMU to start their drive at the BG 35 yard line. The Chips then scored in just 3 plays on a hand off to their last healthy running back in Jake Tafelski. The offense responded with a punt after two more penalties led to a 3rd and 31 situation. Luckily Sami Sir came up with a 52 yard boot to force the Chips to start at their own 20. It looked like a BG collapse was coming as on 3rd and 15 the CMU QB Jase Bauer ran a QB draw for 60 yards to the Falcon 25 yard line. Thanks to some CMU penalties, the Chips had a 4th and 7 at the BG 8 yard line and decided to go for it. I respected the call, but it looked real bad when Pat Day blew up Jase Bauer for a sack/fumble which was recovered by Cashius Howell who tripped with nothing but green grass ahead. The offense was not able to capitalize and had to punt after more penalties led to a 3rd and 27 situation. Croom made an amazing catch and the Falcons looked to be moving but once again the penalties were an absolute drive killer. The punt was then fumbled by CMU, as True Freshman Darius Lorfils hit him just as he caught the ball and Charles Rosser recovered it. 

    The 3rd quarter started out as bad as possible with a ton of penalties and CMU scoring but thanks to the defense it was still 17-10 in favor of the good guys. The offense was moving the ball but penalties killed drives to which the defense stayed strong and was perfect except for the opening drive in which they were put in a bad situation by special teams. Only miscue by the defense was that 60 yard QB run, not sure why there wasn't containment on the QB because CMU had not thrown the ball well all game to that point but the boys held strong and did not let them score on that drive. 

4th Quarter

    The 4th started with another nice run by Patterson and a CMU penalty led to first and goal for the Falcons. 3 straight runs got stuffed the Coach Loeffler opted to take the field goal at the 2 yard line which Lawler put right through the uprights. I loved taking the 3 there as the defense has been so good and going up 20-10 made it a two score game again. The CMU offense was moving the ball (and more BG penalties) and had it at midfield. Then the guy who may get MAC East Player of the Week again in Demetrius Hardamon recovered a Karl Brooks strip sack for 45 yard scoop n score. At this point with BG up 27-10 I though the game was over for sure until the CMU offense finally got clicking and drove 75 yards in 10 plays to score a touchdown and a 2 point conversion to make the game 27-18. The offense was looking to ice the game but got just one first down before punting. A punt in which Sami Sir pinned Central Michigan at their own 4 yard line. CMU then looked to be right back in this game, driving to midfield before Walter Haire came up with the nastiest one handed defensive linemen interception I have ever seen. Starting at the CMU 36 yard line, the Falcons forced all of CMU's timeouts before going for it all on 4th and 5 as Matt found Tyrone Broden for another touchdown on the CMU defender's head. Broden even fought through PI and still made the catch. At that point CMU still ran some plays but the time would run out and BG won 34-18. 

    The 4th quarter saw the defense dominate again, allowing one good CMU drive in garbage time but got two turnovers and scored on one. The offense scored again to ice the game, special teams was great, a complete quarter to seal the win. 

Offense

Passing

    The pass game was flawless. Matt McDonald was 18/21 for 253 yards and 2 touchdowns. Matt was facing pressure all game due to a great CMU pass rush but took care of the football and made good throws all day. The receivers bounced back from all the drops last week and played great with the wealth being spread as always. Odieu Hilaire and Tyrone Broden stood out as Hilaire had 4 catches for 105 yards and Broden had 53 yards, 2 touchdowns, on 3 catches. The O line once again saw Kam Stewart and Tunde Fatukasi switch around at LT with Jalen Grant, Jakari Robinson, Bronson Warner, and Alex Wollschlaeger at the other 4 spots. McDonald was sacked 6 times but overall the O line had a solid day against one of the better MAC defensive fronts. 

Rushing

    The run game was once again a bright spot for BG as Jaison Patterson went over the century mark for 101 yards on 18 carries with a long of 36. Ta'ron Keith had 30 yards on just 5 touches and Harold Fannin scored another rushing touchdown on another TE sweep. The O line had a great day run blocking but the WRs and TEs were crucial in their perimeter blocking today. Taking away the sacks and a couple of McDonald runs, the run game had 159 yards on 31 carries for an average of 5.1 yards per rush, unheard of numbers for the Falcons in years.

Defense

    The defense was dominant again. What else is there to say at this point. The 4 down linemen led usually by Karl Brooks, Walt Haire, and Demetrius Hardamon got pressure all day long on the Chips. Chris Bacon also needs a shoutout for being the best tackler on this BG defense. Trent Simms also did a good job filling in for injured Jordan Anderson. Patrick Day had a big day, always great to see a former walk on have such a big impact for this team. DJ Taylor, Daren Anders, and Brock Horne was solid again at the backer position and at corner Deshawn Jones and Jordan Oladukon had another good game. Blaine Spires and Avi McGary also stepped in to make a few tackles in key spots today.

    CMU gained over 300 yards but the defense was never breaking, allowing over 100 of those yards late in garbage time. The defense covered well, got pressure, and forced 3 turnovers. Cannot ask them to do much more than that. Karl Brooks got 3 sacks and the Falcons had 8 tackles for loss. CMU was just 4/12 on 3rd downs as well. 

Special teams

    The punting by Sami Sir was awesome again this week, Mason Lawler was 2/2 on field goals. Sir pinned CMU in the 20 yard line three times today and helped the Falcons flip the field, while Darius Lorfils and Charles Rosser forced and recovered a fumbled punt to add to the special teams solid performance. Jake Rogers had a good punt return so the only blemish was the penalties they racked up as well as allowing CMU to start the half at our own 35 yard line. 

Takeaways

    I just had a great feeling about this game. I thought Vegas was crazy for making the line 8.5 points in favor of CMU at the start of the week and it showed. Bowling Green dominated this game. The defense got a ton of pressure all game, CMU struggled to score, move the ball, or convert on 3rd downs. The offensive line had a good game, the Falcons ran the ball very well and Matt was perfect throwing the football. The offense also finally got off to a hot start and went up 7-0 in the blink of an eye. The BG penalties were still an absurd 17, killing multiple drives but at the end of the day when you win the turnover battle 4 to nothing it is hard to lose games. BG played well in all 3 phases, the coaching staff had a good game plan, Loeffler called an amazing game and if not for 17 penalties it may have been 50-18. Bowling Green needed this win to move to 3-1 in MAC play, the most MAC wins already in any of the Scot Loeffler seasons as well as tied for most since BG went 3-5 in MAC play in 2016. 

    BG now sits at 4-4 overall, 3-1 in MAC play. With Buffalo beating Toledo, winning the East seems out of reach but by now means impossible. The big thing now is going 2-2 in midweek MACtion to finally end the bowl drought. I have said it 1,000 times since the Buffalo game, Kent-Toledo-Ohio to finish the season is a tough stretch so in my mind the boys needed a 3 game win streak over Miami-CMU-WMU. Western may have just beaten Miami OH but it was ugly, sloppy, and WMU looks down this year so getting this next one would be massive. Hopefully the Falcs can get to 6-6 and not have this EKU loss bite us in the end.