Akron vs Bowling Green Recap and Takeaways 2023

Bowling Green Runs Over Akron on Senior Day!

(photo via BG Athletics)

Takeaways 

    The rain was pouring down on Family Weekend/Senior Day. BGSU was also celebrating ESPN's College Gameday coming to the Doyt 20 years ago for a huge ranked win over NIU. The seniors got to celebrate their last Saturday home game with a 41-14 win over MAC East foe Akron. Once again, the run game told the story of a MAC game played in pouring rain. BG completed just 3 passes to wide receivers, 8 passes in the game. 2 of them went for scores but the real story was the defense and the run game. The Orange and Brown defense forced 4 turnovers and the offense capitalized by scoring 2 touchdowns of less than 10 yards. BG ran for over 200 yards for back-to-back games behind Terion's 131 yards on just 19 carries. Stewart scored 3 times while averaging 6.9 yards per carry. The O line did a solid job but once again Terion broke a ton of tackles.

    Darren Anders forced a fumble along with 2 sacks. The secondary had a couple coverage sacks credited to Cash Howell and Ali Saad who both did a great job getting pressures. Jalen Husky and Trent Simms both had picks while Dontrez Brown recovered both fumbles. The defense as a whole played really well and two straight games the defense held a MAC team to 14 points, less than 300 yards. It is not a stretch to say that this defense that leads the FBS in turnovers is playing at an elite level the last couples games and have had a great season overall.  

    The Falcons entered this matchup as favorites for just the 6th FBS game since the start of 2019. The Falcons started off shaky but ended up routing Akron 41-14. This win felt like a must have type of game. Akron is 1-6 and BG needed to finish out the year 3-2 to go bowling. I said it before, it feels like Akron and Kent are must wins so BG just needs to go 1-2 in MAC West play. This is just the 2nd time in an FBS game that BG has won by more than 2 scores (16 points) and after winning 5 of the 6 games last year by one score, it is so nice to see this team just demolish a MAC counterpart. This team has responded to all the outside noise after 2 rough MAC losses with 2 conference wins. Going 2-2 in the non-con was unreal especially with a P5 win. Then going 2-2 in Saturday MAC play leaves Falcon Nation just needing 2 weeknight wins to go bowling. 

ESPN Game Day 2003

Recap

1st Quarter

    The game started off a little shaky. BG marched down the field on the very first drive to kick a field goal and go up 3-0. The drive was primarily rushes by Terion, the rain was pouring and the run game was quickly identified as the best way to win. Akron responded with a missed field goal, BG then went 3 and out. Akron then took a 7-3 lead on a 7 play, 72 yard TD drive. When BG responded with another punt, I for sure got some flashbacks of the 2021 Akron game and was a little worried this game could start going sideways. 

2nd Quarter 

    However as it has been all season, the defense intercepted Akron when Jalen Husky caught an underthrown slant route to give BG a spark at the start of the 2nd quarter. The INT was returned to the 3 yard line and then Terion Stewart punched it in to make it 10-7 Falcons. BG's Cash Howell got a sack and so after a few traded punts, BG got stuffed on a 4th and 1 when doing the Harold Fannin FB dive. This was then followed up by Akron's punting taking a 4th and 8 situation and running for over 20 yards. At this point it really did feel like same old BG. Again, the defense changed that tune when an Ali Saad strip sack was returned by Dontrez Brown to the red zone with just 10 seconds left. Bazelak then hit OJ open in the end zone but it was dropped so an Alan Anaya field goal made it 13-7 at the half. 

    Going into half time it was obvious the pass games were going to struggle. I thought neither Orth or Bazelak could get a spark going. Bazelak made only one good throw in my opinion that was a dropped TD but the rest were off and after he tripped over himself for a sack I was hoping we would just run the ball every play going forward. 

3rd Quarter

    The 2nd half started the avalanche of BG's win. Akron was actually in BG territory with the ball when Coach Moorehead got an unsportsmanlike penalty and killed Akron's drive. After that BG would score on every possession in the 2nd half outside of running out the clock. BG marched 88 yards to go up 20-7. Bazelak made a great throw on 3rd and long to Ibrahim and Terion did the rest, punching it in the endzone for the 2nd time. It was a 16 yard carry where he broke a tackle in the backfield before rushing it home. The first play of Akron's drive Darren Anders got a strip sack recovered by Brown again. 3 plays later, Stewart got his 3rd rushing touchdown. Then for the fourth time in the game, the defense forced a turnover when Trent Simms got an INT. Then on 3rd and long Connor Bazelak found Harold Fannin down the field for a beautiful dime resulting in a 36 yard touchdown score. 

4th Quarter

    The last quarter was more of the same. The defense forced Akron to turn it over on downs and then it was Cam Orths turn at QB as he rushed down the field and eventually found Ibrahim for an 8 yard TD throw. Akron would score a garbage time TD before BG just ran out the clock with a couple first downs and true freshman Lucian Anderson under center.

    The game was a steamrolling and it feels good to see BG in a position to finally be able to beat down on other MAC teams we deem lesser than us at this moment. BG won the turnover battle 4-0 and rushed for over 200 yards. Impossible to lose a game with those two stats.  

 

Offense

Passing 

For a second straight week the pass game was efficient and was not needed to be the focal point of the offense. Bazelak went 6/11 for a TD while Orth was 2/3 for a TD as well. Cool seeing both of those guys get a TD throw in during a MAC win, Bazelak's first MAC score. 

Only 8 passes caught for 89 yards, the wide received only caught 3 balls as Taron Keith and Fannin caught a couple. Austin Osborne and Abdul Ibrahim had a combine 3 catches. I am not complaining at all, the last 2 games have been bad weather and right now the run game gives us the best chance to win. It is interesting to only have 8 total WR catches in back to back wins, that is old school Ohio football. I love it.   

Rushing

The run game was awesome. Terion did it again. The 8 linemen did a good job with the guard combos of Fatukasi/Pabst and Burns/Warner swapping in and out with Cedric Dunbar in as well. Of course Kam Stewart, Alex Padgett, and Alex Wollschlaeger were steady all game. The line did pretty well in pulling situations especially with Bench and Gazarek as blocking TEs. 

Terion once again hit 100 yards and got himself 3 scores as well. Much deserved for a guy that turns 2 yard gains into 11 yards and makes at least 2 guys miss every run. It is really astounding what he can do and someone needs to make him a highlight tape. TK had some good runs as well as Jaison Patterson getting in there to block a lot which is a sign of the culture on this team. Unselfish, do what the team needs to win.  

Defense 

The defense had another great game. 2nd straight game holding the opponent under 300 yards, 4 takeaways. What else is there to say? Darren Anders, Anthony Hawkins, Davon Ferguson playing like true captains out there. Husky and Simms each had an INT while Dontrez Brown recovered 2 fumbles. Joe Sipp, Ali Saad, and Chace Davis continue to impress me as well. Evan Branch-Haynes has been playing a lot for a freshman which is cool to see the the secondary with Oladokun and Jones held it down back there. 

Special Teams

More good punts from Jackson Kleather while Alan Anaya was 2.2 on field goals and made every PAT. The fake punt was really really bad but the only bad special teams play and luckily it did not result in any points given up. I keep seeing guys hustle which is always good and Pat Day had a few special team tackles.