BOWLING GREEN — Three things were accomplished by Bowling Green State University’s football team on Saturday.
One, the Falcons showed for the second game in a row what benefit timely turnovers can have when they force them. Two, they at last established some semblance of a running game. Three, and most important, they snapped a 10-game losing streak despite being 2½-point home underdogs.
For the first time in 686 days, since Nov. 2, 2019, the Falcons are back in the win column after earning a 27-10 homecoming victory over Football Championship Subdivision member Murray State at Doyt Perry Stadium.
“I’m excited for those guys,” BGSU head coach Scot Loeffler said. “Last week was horrible; it was miserable. I give them credit. We’re a young team, they could’ve tanked it. They came out with a great attitude. We’re just going to keep getting better and better. That’s the goal.”
Just like their Week 2 game against South Alabama, Bowling Green’s defense made an immediate impact on the game before the offense could set foot onto the field.
Murray State (1-2) began the game with the ball on its own 25-yard line. With 3rd-and-13 on the 22, quarterback Preston Rice connected with receiver DeShun Britten for what would have been a first down. The ball was jarred out of his hands by defensive back Devin Taylor, however, and Falcons linebacker Brock Horne intercepted it and brought it to the Murray State 29 to set his team up with excellent field position on their first possession.
“It’s definitely a big confidence booster when we can go out and get an interception, a blocked punt [last week],” Horne said. “Those types of things are game changers. On the opening drive, to go out, stop them, get an interception, and score, it definitely swung the momentum our way right away.”
With that possession, BGSU turned to true freshman Jaison Patterson and redshirt freshman Terion Stewart to get its running game going.
The Falcons (1-2) totaled 41 rushing yards and no touchdowns through their first two games of the season entering Saturday. On their first drive, Patterson (seven yards) and Stewart (six yards) helped the Falcons take a 7-0 lead with 11:47 left in the first quarter, as Patterson scurried in from two yards for his first career rushing TD and the Falcons’ first rushing TD of the season.
“It’s still not perfect, but we’ve got some good backs,” Loeffler said. “Nick Mosley, Patterson, [Taron] Keith, Terion Stewart, so we’ve got to find a way to get them involved so we can play some complementary football. It’s hard to go out and sling it and be productive in the throw game and try to win that way.”
BGSU nearly tripled its total rushing output from the first two games combined on Saturday. The team ran for 118 yards and two TDs. Patterson paced the backfield in carries with 14, and Mosley had nine carries for a team-best 48 yards.
“We knew that we needed to run the ball this week to get respect in the run game,” Patterson said. “At practice that’s all we were talking about. Run the ball, run the ball. We need to take control of the clock, control of the game.”
Bowling Green extended its lead to 10-0, as Nate Needham kicked a 43-yard field goal with 12:03 left in the first half. Each team held the ball at length throughout the second quarter, but the Racers benefited most from playing keep-away from the Falcons.
After Needham’s field goal, MSU went on a 12-play, 75-yard drive that ate 5:08 off the clock, resulted in a 6-yard TD run by Damonta Witherspoon, and cut the Falcons lead to 10-7 after PAT. The Falcons then turned the ball over on their ensuing drive, as quarterback Matt McDonald was intercepted deep in Murray State territory after looking for Christian Sims deep down the near sideline.
Murray State followed with an eight-play, 26-yard drive that lasted 3:45 and resulted in a 47-yard field goal by Aaron Baum and a tie at 10 with 1:46 to play until halftime, and it remained so at the game’s midpoint.
In recent seasons, a would-have-been 59-yard touchdown play that was negated by a penalty might have completely shut down Bowling Green’s offense. That wasn’t the case to begin the third quarter.
On 2nd-and-8 on its own 41, McDonald connected with Keith for a catch and run of 59 yards that would have been a walk-in TD, but an illegal shift penalty on BGSU brought it back to the BGSU 36-yard-line.
The Falcons rallied and recovered after that, running nine more plays and finding the end zone once more. On 3rd-and-goal from the 1-yard line, McDonald bootlegged and decided to keep the ball himself for a rushing touchdown that gave BGSU a 17-10 lead with 9:25 left in the third. That drive went 12 plays for 71 yards and took 5:35 off the clock.
“It was my fault,” McDonald said about the penalty. “[Tyrone] Broden was not lined up, and I kicked the motion and two guys were moving at once, and that’s a penalty. So it was completely my fault, so I was like, ‘All right, we got to score now because we lost the big one there,’ so I knew we would, and I had all the confidence in the world in my guys to make plays, and it felt good to bounce back.”
BGSU extended its lead to 20-10 on Needham’s 36-yard field goal with 11 seconds left in the third quarter.
The Falcons then took a 27-20 lead on their next possession, after Murray State punted, as McDonald connected with Keith for a 5-yard TD.
McDonald was efficient in throwing the ball. He completed 22 of 28 passes for 221 yards, a passing TD, and an interception. His go-to receiver — no surprise — was his former high-school teammate Austin Osborne.
Osborne caught six passes for a team-best 69 yards, including 32 after the catch. Broden registered six catches, as well, for 52 yards. Sims had four catches for 50 yards.
The Falcons held Murray State’s potent rushing attack to 69 yards and 2.1 per carry. Entering Saturday, Murray State totaled 400 rushing yards in two games.
Rice completed 13 of 28 passes for 132 yards and two INTs. BGSU’s Sy Dabney stepped in front of a pass from Rice with 5:58 to play in the game that practically sealed the victory.
“I think our defense played exceptionally,” Loeffler said. “They got off the field, they held them to zero points in the second half, and I think that in the third quarter and fourth quarter we played some complementary football, which is great.”
First Published September 19, 2021, 1:55 a.m.
