BOWLING GREEN — Comparing Bowling Green in 2022 to the Falcons of past years is like evaluating two separate, distinct college football programs.
The old Bowling Green was unsettled and disjointed at the quarterback position.
The new Falcons have a much-improved senior Matt McDonald at quarterback, who has thrown 13 touchdowns and one interception in four games this season.
Coach Scot Loeffler’s early Bowling Green teams also struggled mightily on defense. While the unit hasn’t locked opponents down at all times in 2022, the Falcons were able to get a key stop on fourth-and-6 on Akron’s final drive Saturday to seal a 31-28 win -— their first in a MAC opener in seven years.
Bowling Green looks to continue those steps Saturday against Buffalo.
“We’re a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit more focused,” Loeffler said. “There’s no secrets about it. We’ve got to protect the ball, we’ve got to block really well, we’ve got to tackle, and find a way to make one more play than them.”
With the possible exception of special teams -— which naturally cooled down after blocking two punts over a blazing two-game start — every Bowling Green unit can reasonably claim to have better itself since the opener in some form or fashion.
That begins and ends with McDonald.
In the Falcons’ first game against UCLA, he hit 17 of 34 passes for one touchdown and was largely rendered ineffective. Now, McDonald is performing at a level where not winning the MAC East Division offensive player of the week award — as he did against both Eastern Kentucky and Marshall — almost tracks as a disappointment.
“Matt went through a really difficult situation,” Loeffler said. “We didn't have anyone to protect him. We didn't have anyone for him to throw to. He went through a learning curve that's really, really difficult. ... We finally have got some pieces of the puzzle that were missing.”
One piece of the puzzle whose absence was particularly felt before the Akron game was a consistent rushing attack. While passing has rarely been a problem for Bowling Green in 2022, the Falcons had only intermittent success churning out yardage on the ground in September.
That changed Saturday. Bowling Green ran for 175 yards against the Zips, nearly 18 percent more than their previous season high against Eastern Kentucky on Sept. 10. It was a true team effort — sophomore running back Jamal Johnson, sophomore running back Jaison Patterson, sophomore wide receiver Jhaylin Embry, and McDonald all amassed double-digit totals.
“It all started in practice. Coach [Loeffler] came to us, and he was like, ‘Take game reps. Take game reps in practice,’" Patterson said. “In the game it was like, ‘We did this in practice. We can go and do this right now.’ That made a big difference.”
For the defense, which has yet to put together a truly complete 60-minute performance, big plays made the difference in Akron. Sophomore cornerback Jalen Burton had a pick-six. Junior inside linebacker JB Brown and sophomore outside linebacker Charles Rosser pounced on loose balls. Every turnover turned into points and further boosted the Falcons’ confidence.
They’ll need every bit of that confidence against Buffalo — a prolific scoring team just two weeks removed from dropping 50 points on Eastern Michigan in Ypsilanti.
“We just have a locked in, focused mindset, taking things one week at a time,” senior safety Chris Bacon said. “We're also preparing as if every game is a championship game week. That's just how we're going about it.”
First Published October 4, 2022, 8:51 p.m.
