State of the Program 9/24/23

BGSU Homecoming Was a Massive Letdown

   State of the Program 9/24/23 

The Falcons actually got a massive crowd to come to the Doyt. Seriously, watching on TV it looked like the biggest crowd since 2014 Indiana. Boy was it wasted. This output is more of the norm than an outlier for this BGSU program the last 8 years. No one has carried more water for Coach Loffler than me and he has deserved respect for rebuilding this team over the last few years. However, the MAC losses by a million are wearing my patience thin. Under Coach Loeffler, outside of a couple games in 2021, Coach Loffler's Orange and Brown squad get the doors blown off of them. 

    The Ohio game was freakin embarrassing. Connor Bazelak looks scared in the pocket. This guy played in the SEC??? He looks like he would get flustered in a sorority charity flag football game. That first pick looked so awful coming out of his hand it just slipped away. The offensive line got their tails kicked in. The zone defense was an absolute mess, Ohio's Kurtis Rourke was 14/16 for 193 yards and 3 scores. Interesting how consistently over 5 years this offense has never made moving the ball easy. Yet Ohio schemes up plays to take advantage of the zone, or one read plays to just spring one guy open. I will admit I know NOTHING about calling plays, but by gawd I watch a lot of college football. 90% of teams run a lot of one read throws, where everyone's route is design to spring ONE wide out open. BG runs a pro style offense, similar to the one that Jimbo Fisher runs at Texas AM, and they were 5-7 and almost raised 90 million dollars to get rid of him. News flash, we do not have the offensive line to have play calls with 3 or more reads. it is insane to ask a MAC level QB to make that many reads. Matt McDonald was able to do it because the man never cared about pressure in his face, or getting hit. Matty took hit after hit and kept making his reads and would make smart decisions with the ball. At least Cam Orth can run but man this staff is setting up Connor to fail and clearly it is affecting his mental game. I think Connor has a ton of talent but he has only looked good against a bad FCS team. 

Ohio, Liberty, and a slew of other teams BG has lost to in recent years makes offense look simple, somewhat easy, as do many college teams do. Not every drive, but there are plenty of plays in every G5 college game across the country where guys get sprung wide open. Not in Bowling Green, nope we have to read 3 progressions and then fit the ball in tight widows where guys get hit and drop the ball. Go ahead and watch UMass play New Mexico on ESPN+. Those are two horrific teams that never make bowl games, and even they have 5-7 plays a game where offense just looks so easy for them. It is freakin pulling team every game except last year's Toledo game where this offense looks clunky. Big game against Buffalo last year? Blowout loss. Playing Ohio for the division? Blowout loss. How is every loss this bad? The MAC has more parity than any conference. We had 7 straight years of different champions, 3-9 NIU crushed 9-4 EMU last year, this league is crazy. So to loss this many MAC games by 30+ is just getting puzzling. 

Going Forward

    I learned my lesson from last year. Despite how upset I am, there is a lot of season left. BG seemed hopeless after the EKU and Buffalo losses last year and Coach Loeffler rallied to get to a bowl game and beat Toledo. My thoughts are the same as pre season, make another bowl game or look for a new head coach. Coach Loeffler has been a great leader of men, program builder. He resurrected this program, beat Toledo twice, beat Minnesota on the road. With that being said, based on results and in my opinion very questionable internal coordinator promotions, he may have done his job and now it is the job of a new HC to lead this team to the next level. Coach Loeffler fixed the grades, the culture, but eventually wins matter and fair or not, the rebuild took time and at every G5 school patience wears thin. Find me the list of G5 coaches at their school for more than 6 years, that list is mighty short I promise you that. This team needs to find 5 wins and if they keep starting games with horrific turnovers and inept offense, I cannot see it happening. Luckily Buffalo, Kent, Akron, WMU, and Ball State look pretty bad so BG could rattle off some wins.