With 4:44 to go in the third quarter Saturday night at Doyt L. Perry Stadium, it might be safe to say the Bowling Green defense and special teams units were a bit shell-shocked.
After all, Western Michigan had dropped 35 points on them in just over 40 minutes of play, and had used a combination of running and passing to confuse the defense. And, just four minutes earlier, after the offense had brought the Falcons back within seven at 28-21, WMU’s Tyrone Walker returned a Shaun Suisham kickoff 91 yards to the house to put WMU back up by 14.
What the two units needed was a stop.
What the team got was a start.
After BG’s offense scored again to draw BG within seven again at 35-28, the Falcon defense stood tall on the ensuing drive, forcing a Matt Steffen punt. Steffen fumbled the snap, recovered, tried to punt the ball anyway, and was blocked by reserve wide receiver Derrick Lett, and recovered by BJ Lane at the three yard line. A celebration penalty was assessed, giving the Falcons the ball at the 18.
“We just topped last week as one of the greatest team wins I’ve been a part of,” BG coach Urban Meyer. “When you see the offense, defense, special teams, a fake punt, another blocked punt, and then the defense intercepts and scores and makes some key stops, and then all of a sudden the offense scores. … Once again, we just topped last week.”
From then on, both the defense and special teams played big throughout the game. The defense forced the Broncos into three straight punts, the latter of which was downed at the one by BG defensive back Janssen Patton. Patton then returned an interception 12 yards for a score three plays later.
“We worked all week on our punt team and punt coverage,” Patton said. “It’s something we really harp on, to have a really good punt team. We know [punter] Pat Fleming is going to put the ball down in there, and I was able to get a good jump off the line.
Patton, lined up on the far side of the field, saw a screen play coming, but said he thought they might be running a double screen. He waited, and made possibly the easiet interception he will ever make.
The Broncos then tied the game at 42 with 2:29 left, and after the Falcons failed on fourth down with 39 seconds left, Western drove inside the Falcon 25-yard line, giving them a field goal opportunity to win the ball game.
Once again, though, BG made a huge play when the game was on the line, as Alex Glantzis, lined up over center, got a piece of Anthony Apa’s attempt, sending the game to overtime.
“[Defensive coordinator] Coach Beckman always harps that that’s a graded play,” Glantzis said. “I was getting a decent push on that guy all game, and I saw that he had to kick over me to get to the uprights. I just tried to get as good a push as I could and I hoped I got enough of it so it wouldn’t go through the uprights.”
Meyer agreed that the blocked field goal was an amazing play.
“We practice hard,” Meyer said. “There were 15 or so plays in that game where you say ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ They had some plays like that. It was a longer field goal that I thought. If they would have been closer, he would have been able to kick it higher. Our guys did a great job blocking that kick.”
In overtime, the Falcon defense stopped the Broncos when it counted again, holding WMU on third down inside the 10 and holding the visitors to a field goal for a 45-42 Bronco lead. The rest is history, as BG quarterback Josh Harris scored on a five-yard run to win the game.