OXFORD, Ohio — In what has become a familiar refrain for Bowling Green this season, missed chances were the story Wednesday at Miami.
The score was ugly — the RedHawks cruised to a 44-3 victory at Yager Stadium — but Bowling Green was not without opportunity to at least make things interesting early in the game.
Instead, Bowling Green turned two Miami turnovers in the first 16 minutes into no points, saw two of its own first-half interceptions morph into Miami touchdowns, missed two field goals, and had a possible touchdown pass to running back Bryson Denley yield nothing.
None of it went to plan for the Falcons, and then game quickly got out of hand.
“I can promise you if we hit Denley on the rail route and in the low red [zone], we kick and make the field goals, the momentum would’ve shifted and we would’ve been in that football game, but it didn’t,” Bowling Green coach Scot Loeffler said. “So what we need to do is learn how to respond when those things go poorly, and they did.”
Bowling Green was down 10-3 when it missed a second straight field goal early in the second quarter, but the mistakes had taken their toll by then. Miami scored four straight touchdowns to end the half, effectively deciding the game in a 27-point barrage in fewer than nine minutes.
However, the most disappointing part for Loeffler was not that the first half was filled to the brim with missed chances, but rather BG’s inability to stay in the game after them.
“Unfortunately, those things are going to happen,” Loeffler said of the missed chances. “We didn’t respond well, then everything crashed and burned after that. That’s where we need to do a better job as a mentality with everyone.
“Whenever things don’t go our way, we need to be able to respond and still hang in there and not just let it slide and fall apart like it did.”
Now there is little time for the Falcons (3-7, 2-4 Mid American Conference) to lament. Bowling Green has its shortest turnaround of the season, a five-day break before matching up with Ohio.
The Bobcats (4-5, 3-3) have disappointed after being picked to win the conference in the preseason, but they still possess a physical running game that averages 200 yards and also rank first in the MAC in red-zone scoring percentage.
“They’re a super physical team, but we have no time to feel sorry for ourselves,” Loeffler said. “The great thing about football is no one is going to feel sorry that we didn’t play well [Wednesday].”
With two games remaining in the season, Bowling Green has been eliminated from bowl contention and will have a fourth consecutive losing season.
Loeffler, in his first season at BG, said Wednesday’s response to challenging circumstances showed BG still has a ways to go.
“Tough, hard-nosed programs are able to overcome those issues, and not just let the whole thing fall apart,” he said. “We need to increase our toughness. We need to increase our mentality. We need to get depth. There’s a lot of things that need to be done.”
“But that’s reality,” he added. “That’s just a mental, physical toughness deal. That’s football: Things aren’t always going to work and fall into the way you want it to.”
First Published November 14, 2019, 7:53 p.m.
