Bowling Green might not have beaten Toledo on the football field Wednesday night, but its coach did kill the Rockets with kindness off it.

Here was Scot Loeffler after what he called a physical mismatch — “wasn’t even close” — in Toledo’s 49-17 liquidation of the Falcons:

“We watch the tape,” he said. “[Toledo] is the best football team in this conference. It’s not even in the [same] hemisphere in terms of talent, speed size. ... This conference and us, we’re in a race to catch up with this team.”

Yes, a race to ... wait, what?!

Was Loeffler really talking about the same Toledo team that’s 5-5? The same program that’s 14-13 in its last 27 Mid-American Conference games?

Or was he twisting the knife and trolling a rival?

Either way, the heaping of flattery was interesting, because here was a league coach saying out loud what the annual recruiting rankings suggest.

And, fair or not, it cut straight to the heart of the central question and criticism of Toledo football.

No matter how Loeffler meant it, he might as well have asked: If the Rockets are so talented, where’s the disconnect?

Why are their gourmet ingredients not producing a consistently better meal?

In the spirit of equal time, I asked Toledo coach Jason Candle for his response to Loeffler’s appraisal.

“That’s somebody’s opinion,” he said. “We feel like we’ve recruited well. I feel like we have talented guys, but you still have to play the 12 opportunities that you have each year. ... I’m glad that he has enough respect for our program to think we have a talented roster. Obviously, the football game through three quarters would have indicated that we do have a little bit of talent on our team.”

Well played.

As for our expert opinion, on a scale of one to the 1985 Bears, I would rank Toledo’s talent somewhere in the middle.

No, it’s not in a different “hemisphere” from the rest of the MAC. It’s not even in the same neighborhood of its own roster from a few years ago.

Rewind to Candle’s first season as head coach in 2016, when Toledo had quarterback Logan Woodside, running back Kareem Hunt, receivers Diontae Johnson and Cody Thompson, tight end Michael Roberts, offensive tackles Storm Norton and Elijah Nkansah, defensive lineman Treyvon Hester and Ola Adeniyi, and cornerback Ka’dar Hollman. All either played significant time in the NFL or remain in the league.

Now that was a metric crap ton of talent, and no matter how well Toledo recruits and develops, we’re probably not going to see that kind of collection again.

But the Rockets still have plenty of pieces.

The recruiting gurus say that. (According to the 247 Sports Team Talent Composite, which rates teams based on how the players on their roster — accounting for transfers and departures — were ranked in high school, Toledo has the 77th-most talent in the country. Western Michigan is second in the MAC at 98th.)

The scouts say that. (One NFC scout said Toledo and Central Michigan have the most NFL talent in the MAC, “for sure.” Among the Rockets’ pro prospects: defensive linemen Jamal Hines and Desjuan Johnson, defensive backs Tycen Anderson and Samuel Womack, and tailback Bryant Koback.)

And our eyes say that.

I mean, you’ve seen the Rockets’ defense, which Pro Football Focus ranks as the No. 5 unit in the nation — behind Georgia, Michigan, Cincinnati, and Wisconsin — and is a one-eye-open nightmare up front, as Bowling Green became the latest to learn. Even rushing just three linemen, Toledo was in the backfield before the Falcons could count to ... One Mississippi.

“We played some good defensive fronts with Minnesota and Tennessee, and Minnesota and Tennessee never got us out of our game plan,” Loeffler said. “[Toledo] absolutely did.”

So, yes, Toledo has the horses, maybe the most in the MAC.

And yet, clearly, the whole is less than the sum, and we’re left to wonder how a team with this measure of talent and experience — the Rockets returned almost their entire two-deep — is out of league contention for the fourth straight season.

What isn’t adding up?

This year, there are three things, beginning with early lack of clarity at quarterback and an unsteady offensive line.

The first land mine could have been foreseen, the latter one not so much, given that — even without injured star right tackle Nick Rosi — Toledo has four starters back from a line that cleared the way for the league’s best offense last year. But, simply, a unit expected to be the bedrock foundation of the offense has too often turned to dust. The Rockets have allowed a league-high 34 sacks and rank 118th nationally in pass blocking and 83rd in run blocking, according to Pro Football Focus, which grades every player on every play of every game.

Then there is the more indefinable — but most important — factor: a bad case of human nature.

In the contests built up as big games, Toledo has met the moment. It had the lead in the final minute at Notre Dame, thumped its expected challengers in the MAC West — Ball State and Western Michigan — and throttled Bowling Green.

The other games? Don’t ask. (Question for the Elias Sports Bureau: before Toledo this year, when is the last time a team lost three home games in which it was favored by at least nine points?)

I asked Candle about this dynamic and his staff’s battle to solve the biggest puzzle in college football, which is how to consistently coax the best out of 18 to 22-year-old athletes.

“That's an interesting way of looking at it,” he said. “We live in a society where external motivation is so critical and messaging and how things get done is a big part of who these young people are, who we are. What's the first thing everybody does after every football game? They go to their phone and look what's happening around them. That's hard to avoid at times. You can't get caught up in the outside piece of it. You have to constantly harp on that.

“Toledo has a proud tradition and it's a proud program. You're going to get everybody in our league's best shot. Our kids know that, they understand that. There hasn’t been a common thread in the end of these two or three-point losses. We just didn’t finish or we didn’t make a play here or there. ... That's something we have to do a deep dive on in the offseason.”

Now, the big question: Can he find the fix?

As I wrote last week, you can talk yourself into anything with these Rockets.

The glass-half-full perspective: A Toledo program that has lost its three league games by a combined eight points is on the cusp.

Its questions are evolving into answers — redshirt freshman Dequan Finn looks like the quarterback of the future (731 passing yards the past two weeks) and the line has improved — and the future is bright. Toledo is set to return eight starters on offense and, presuming Hines and Desjuan Johnson return for their final years, nine on defense.

The Rockets should be very good next season.

But everyone knows the deal.

As Candle prepares to enter the second-to-last season of his contract — and with a new athletic director coming in — the perennial promise of a satisfying dish is not enough.

It’s time to serve one, too.

First Published November 13, 2021, 7:40 p.m.