BOWLING GREEN — The Bowling Green State University football team is “fighting youth and strength” within its running game.
That thought came from head coach Scot Loeffler following their defeat last Saturday against South Alabama, in which the BGSU offensive line and running backs struggled to move the ball on the ground for the second week in a row.
“When you run the ball, you have 80-something plays, and you keep the defense off the field, and you score,” Loeffler said. “Whenever you’re picking and hunting, and you can’t run the ball, and you’re dibbling and dabbling to try to find creative ways to move the football and you can’t run, it’s tough. We’ve got backs. We’re fighting youth and strength right now.”
The Falcons have rushed for 41 yards in their first two games of the 2021 season.
Sandusky product Terion Stewart has paced the backfield with 29 yards on 12 carries, and while Nick Mosely has 26 yards on eight carries, 24 of those came on one play in Week 1 at Tennessee.
BGSU has been out-gained on the ground 441-41, and it is averaging just shy of one yard per carry in 42 total attempts.
The Falcons’ offensive line was a question mark heading into this season. The starting center, right guard, and right tackle positions were up for grabs throughout training camp, the starting right guard spot wasn’t decided until the day of the Tennessee game — redshirt freshman Malone VanGorder has started both games — and their most tenured offensive player in senior guard Sam Neverov announced his retirement from football Wednesday due to medical reasons.
Additionally, the running backs room has redshirt freshman Stewart and true freshmen Jaison Patterson and Mosley rotating for carries. Stewart is the clubhouse leader with 12 carries, but Mosley is close behind with eight, and Patterson has five.
The offensive line at a glance is undersized, with senior right tackle Jordan Murphy being the heaviest starter listed at 290 pounds.
“We have linemen that are still learning and still developing,” Stewart said on Monday. “I trust them, they just got to keep going to that weight room. There’s a lot of freshmen, and we’re going against bigger people right now.”
The silver lining, Loeffler said, is the lack of production within the running game isn’t because of mental errors.
“If you really watch the tape, there's not a ton of missed assignments in the running game,” Loeffler said. “A lot of it has to do with some strength, some age, some experience, and I can handle that right now. We know that’s our weakness right now. With time, that will be our strength. Right now, there's not a lot of missed assignments which my hat's off to those guys.”
In the meantime, the Falcons offense has been reliant on quarterback Matt McDonald. He has been efficient to start the year and his 308 passing yards against South Alabama were a career high, but the complementary piece within the running game has been missing.
“There’s a lot of young guys that are playing positions that old guys should be playing,” Loeffler said. “We're being creative as we can as coaches to help them protect Matt. And we'll have to continue to do that for this year. As soon as we get older and stronger, that run game will kick up, and obviously, you’ve seen how we can throw the ball. Once we are able to run the ball the way that we want to run the ball, along with how we can throw it, this is going to be a really good offense.”
First Published September 16, 2021, 6:42 p.m.
