The Falcons football team was defeated 38-28 by the Buffalo Bulls on Tuesday night, the team’s first Mid-American Conference road loss of the season.
“It’s frustrating,” Falcons head coach Mike Jinks said. “Buffalo is an improved ball club, and I really thought that it was going to be a good gauge of where we’ve come and where we are as a football team.”
The game started out with Buffalo getting the first points of the game on a touchdown run midway through the first quarter; however, the Falcons were able to respond with a touchdown pass to freshman wide receiver Quintin Morris from freshman quarterback Jarret Doege, with both teams getting the extra points to make it 7-7. However, Buffalo was able to get a couple of quick touchdowns before the end of the quarter, as quarterback Tyree Jackson and wide receiver Anthony Johnson connected from 21 yards and 69 yards respectively to make it a 21-7 game.
In the second quarter, it was both defenses that stepped up as neither team was able to score until freshman running back Andrew Clair got in for a short touchdown run with just 36 seconds remaining, cutting the lead to 21-14 at halftime.
However, in the third quarter, Buffalo was able to restore their two possession lead on another long touchdown pass, which the Falcons were able to respond to on their next drive with a touchdown pass from Doege to senior wide receiver Teo Redding. In the fourth, Buffalo put themselves back into a two-possession advantage with a short field goal to start off the quarter, but the Falcons again closed the gap with a connection from Doege to junior wide receiver Scott Miller. On Buffalo’s next possession, Buffalo got a touchdown run, which the Falcons would be unable to recover from as Buffalo took the 38-28 win.
“I saw that we struggled to defend the pass,” Jinks said. “I saw that we had trouble covering on multiple occasions.”
“Next week’s a big one,” Jinks said. “We don’t have any time to put our heads down and pout, we’ve got to walk out of here with our heads held up and we’ve got to get to work for five hours when we get back to the facility and we’ve got to prepare.”
The team will next play on Wednesday night in their final home game of the season against the Toledo Rockets.
