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| Fuck it, Dude. Let's go Bowling. |
We scurried out of Pittsburgh with our tail secured firmly between our legs and fled to the safety and security of Lane Stadium where we can regroup, refocus and reinvent ourselves. Or lose to a MAC team.
Breathe in a whiff of that idea and marvel at how it stings the mental nostrils.
We. Could. Lose. To. A. MAC. Team.
I don't think we will. I also didn't think we'd lose to Pitt.
Bowling Green is a talented but inexperienced team. On offense they play physical, smashmouth football and they actually have the size to do it. Their offensive line is young but sizeable, with nine linemen on the roster that tip the scales at 300 lbs or more. That's over 2,700 lbs of linemen right there. And when we add in the linemen on the roster that are below 300 lbs (the lightest of the group being 274), Bowling Green is touting eighteen offensive linemen on the team. That means the Falcon are just as deep and probably just a little bigger than we are up front. The biggest difference, though, is that BG's line utilizes a powerful, physical man blocking scheme, and they play with a chip on their shoulder.
Bowling Green is a talented but inexperienced team. On offense they play physical, smashmouth football and they actually have the size to do it. Their offensive line is young but sizeable, with nine linemen on the roster that tip the scales at 300 lbs or more. That's over 2,700 lbs of linemen right there. And when we add in the linemen on the roster that are below 300 lbs (the lightest of the group being 274), Bowling Green is touting eighteen offensive linemen on the team. That means the Falcon are just as deep and probably just a little bigger than we are up front. The biggest difference, though, is that BG's line utilizes a powerful, physical man blocking scheme, and they play with a chip on their shoulder.
Watch this touchdown run against Florida:
Starts innocently enough, right? A goal-to-go run up the gut that gets stuffed for no gain and driven backwards. I think we've all seen that before. But then Bowling Green's tight end says fuck no, we ain't going out like that, and he wraps up his own teammate and drags him into the endzone. And the Florida defenders are left standing there wondering what just happened, because they just got flat out schooled in football toughness by a MAC team .
Their quarterback and tailback are pretty good, too. Junior quarterback Matt Schilz completed 59.6% of his passes last season for 3,024 yards, 28 TDs and 13 INTs. He's completed exactly 60% of his passes this season but that number is skewed by the 49% completion rating he had in the season opener against Florida. Outside of that game, he's completing over two thirds of his passes. That's counterbalanced by the fact that he's thrown one pick in every game so far, but has only managed one touchdown. Tailback Anthon Samuel won MAC freshman of the year honors last year, averagine 5.86 yards per touch. So far this season his average has come down to 5.06, again skewed by the Florida game in which he averaged 3.0 ypc. He's already found the endzone four times on this young season after scoring five all of last year.
So we have big, aggressive blockers, a competent upperclassman quarterback, and a talented young tailback. God this sounds familiar...
Switching sides, Bowling Green runs a base 4-3 defense, but you'd be better off to call them a multiple defense because they will throw tons of different fronts against you based on the situation. Seriously, look at this:
That's just your basic 2-3-6 to counter Florida's five-wide spread. Looking at that picture tells you what you need to know about how Bowling Green plays defense: they will do whatever the hell they feel like they have to do to hang with a marquee opponent. They come to play.
But it also surprises me to see BG with only two down linemen, because the defensive line is not a weakness on this team. The defensive front four is anchored by senior tackle and team captain Chris Jones, who earned first team All-MAC honors last season, finishing 47 tackles, 14.0 tfl, and 8.5 sacks. You don't see many DTs with 8.5 sacks. Derrick Hopkins led the Hokies' DTs last season with 3.0. In fact, no one on our entire defense finished last season with as many sacks as Jones tallied.
Bowling Green's struggles so far this young season have been a twofold problem of waiting for their offense to start clicking and being weak in the secondary. They are surrendering 273 yards per game through the air but are ranked 39th in the nation against the run, and that's with a game against Florida on the books. Inside running is especially difficult against the Falcons with the presence of Jones and last year's leading tackler middle lineback Dwayne Woods. And their offense, while anemic through three games, has the talent and the experience to be good. They just have to put it all together. And when they step onto Worsham Field on Saturday, it will be to decide whether they start the season a disappointing 1-3 or press the reset button at 2-2.
Where have I heard this before?
THIS IS THE PITT GAME ALL OVER AGAIN.
If we don't come out focused and fail to take Bowling Green seriously then the Hokies will be the team that starts the season 2-2. The Falcons have the talent to beat a sleepwalking Virginia Tech and their offense is just waiting for everything to start clicking. Head coach Dave Clawson will have his players frothing at the mouth by the time the game starts. And we have a longstanding tradition of not taking non-BCS conference opponents seriously.
And even if we do take them seriously, we have to figure out what to fix on both sides of the ball and fix it fast. Like I said in the Pitt review, my hands are off the defense, because I trust Bud Foster to fix that. But on offense the same game plan that should have worked against Pitt is the one that should work against Bowling Green. Pick on their shaky secondary, spread the field to make them defend sideline to sideline, base the running game on speed to the edge or L-Train up the middle to combat power with power. Will we do what needs to be done and return to the three formation hybrid spread of the Techmo Bowl, a scheme that provided a concise vision for what our offense wants to be and aims to do, or will we trot out the seven-set clusterfuck Stinespring Special, where no one knows what formation is coming next but it really doesn't matter.
It's yet another gut-check for Frank Beamer and his staff. Do they have enough fire in the belly to get this team whipped into respectable shape? Because the plodding, uninspired performances of the last two weeks will not be enough to get it done against Bowling Green or in the ACC Coastal. Every team we face for the rest of the season is going to hit us with their best shot. We have to decide whether we're going to hit back.
