KENT, Ohio — Football minds of any nature know that the running game is often the most telling component in the outcome of a football game. Saturday was no different at Kent’s Dix Stadium, where Bowling Green’s ground attack got moving in the second quarter and carried the Falcons to a 45-14 romp over the Flashes.
Kent had controlled the running game through the first quarter, and true to form, the Flashes were knotted with the Falcons after the first stanza. Running backs Antonio King and Eddie Beccles and quarterback Joshua Cribbs provided a three-man rotation that kept the Falcon defense off balance. King totaled 59 yards in the first, and Cribbs chipped in with a 10-yard touchdown run to tie the game at seven, giving the Flashes 97 yards on the ground.
Flashes coach Dean Pees, though, thought the turn of the momentum was easy to figure out.
“The rushing doesn’t matter if you can’t get the ball in the end zone. We ran the ball well, but we should have run it better,” Pees said. “I’m not sure we should have went away from it. We do things well, and we try to get cute, and we don’t make Bowling Green stop what we’re doing well.”
“Our offense really got it moving, we controlled the ball, I thought we had a good plan,” Pees said. “We had to control the ball for the entire game to win the game. The thing of it is, though, is that it [Kent’s rushing total] is a statistic. We’re too goddang caught up in how we’re doing statistically; We’re 3-6. That’s the only statistic that goddang matters.”
Saturday’s loss could be traced to the second quarter, when BG tailback Joe Alls, who has rushed for over 100 yards in two consecutive games after returning from a shoulder injury, used massive holes at the line of scrimmage to virtually take the game over. Alls, who rushed for 28 yards in the first quarter, including a two-yard touchdown run, exploded for 52 more in the second, including an impressive 30-yard scamper midway through the quarter to put the Falcons up for good at 14-7.
“Last week, I ran pretty good, but didn’t feel all the way back,” Alls explained. “I rehabbed hard to try to get my shoulder better, and the coaches have done a great job with me. Today it felt good, it felt normal, I felt like I did before I got injured. The offensive line did a great job blocking, as usual, and we just had a great game.
“Josh [Harris] has been dinged up a little bit, and being able to run the ball like we have has taken a lot of pressure off of him too. … We’ve been running the ball well, and we’re going to go into each game running the ball.”
Kent continued to run the ball effectively, but as their coach explained, could not seem to sustain drives and punch the ball in the end zone. And in the second half, Alls and the Falcons did just the opposite, racking up 172 yards on the ground in putting the Flashes away. Alls ran for 99 yards in the second half, and finished the game with a career-high 179 yards in 21 carries. It was his fourth 100-yard rushing game of the season, and eighth of his career.
“That’s the beauty of our offense,” BG Coach Urban Meyer said. “People have said to me, ‘Is that the game plan?’ and yeah, that’s the game plan every week, to run the ball. Joe Alls ran exceptionally hard, I think it was one of Joe’s better games. I think he played fantastic today.”
For the game, BG outrushed the Flashes 293-255, and 265-158 after the first quarter. Meyer acknowledged that BG’s rush defense needs to improve significantly heading into this week’s showdown with Northern Illinois, a team who runs the ball very well.
“We gave up 250 rushing yards, and if we do that again next week, won’t win that game,” Meyer said. “We will be 8-1 at this point next week if we played like we did this week. Our focus is on getting Mike Malone and Jason Morton healthy, and get our other guys healthy.”
