Without taking anything away from future opponents, or giving those opponents bulletin board material for upcoming games, Saturday’s game between Bowling Green and Northern Illinois is the biggest game this season for Bowling Green.
The Falcons and Huskies enter Saturday’s tilt tied atop the Mid-American Conference’s West Division, a place unfamiliar to both teams in recent years. They both feature outstanding individual players, and both play very well as a team. Consequently, BG coach Urban Meyer has expressed both concern and excitement over the game.
“You’re 8-0, ranked 16 in the country, but all of that is not important, because the task at hand is playing in a championship-level game,” Meyer said. “At this point, this week, this is the championship game. We’re putting every bit of energy into this game. I’ve been doing this for 18 years, and every three, four or five years you get an opportunity to do this. Our seniors have never had an opportunity to do this.”
The task at hand won’t be easy though, because the exact problem BG has had in the last two weeks is the Huskies’ major strength heading into Saturday: they run the ball very well.
Two weeks ago, freshman tailback A.J. Harris carried the ball 99 yards on 27 carries in the place of third-string tailback Michael Turner, who left the game with an ankle sprain. Turner enters Saturday’s game as the nation’s No. 2 major college rusher, averaging 142.8 yards per game.
These two began the season behind Thomas Hammock and Adrian Davis, who are both out for the rest of the regular season with injuries.
“A few games ago, we were up at the top in rush defense,” Meyer said. “The last two weeks, we’ve struggled against the run. Ideally, you want to stop the run first. … The thing that scares you is that they run on you, and then you throw on the Miami tape, and they pass all over them in the second half.”
The Huskies also present problems for opponents on special teams, as Meyer is well aware of the Huskies’ potent return team. Dan Sheldon, a reserve at the beginning of the year, is averaging 17.4 yards per return, and ranks fifth nationally in that category.
“They’re better in the return game [than us],” Meyer said. “I see them being more like we were last year in the return game, where we had two of the top returners in the conference. I think we are outstanding in punt, and good in kick coverage, and I think these will be two very good matchups, and this will be where the game is won.”
Meyer also said that his team’s experience against Western Michigan, a game the Falcons won in overtime after being down by two touchdowns most of the game, and other times when the team has faced adversity in games will help them this weekend.
“You saw it against Ohio, you saw it against Central Michigan where they went right down and went up 7-0,” Meyer said. “You saw it at Kansas for a good quarter, where we got hit in the face, our quarterback was getting hit. … Western Michigan was a big win for us, we were down 14 points twice; we had to win that game.”
Northern Illinois is averaging an attendance total of 19,935 at home, and are expecting even more this week.
“This [BGSU] is a well-balanced football team,” NIU coach Joe Novak said. “They run it well. They throw it well. They can win any phase of the game. Urban Meyer has done a great job establishing discipline in their program. I don’t think we want to get in a shootout with them. That’s not to our benefit. [Josh] Harris is the key, but you just can’t focus on the quarterback.”
