At first, it seemed as though the week off between the Bowling Green football team’s opening victory over Tennessee Tech and their rematch with Missouri was a good thing. Now, the team is getting a bit antsy.
With three days remaining until Saturday’s kickoff, the Falcons have been trying to find some way to keep up the competitive edge this week, while at the same time remaining healthy for possibly the biggest game ever at Doyt L. Perry Stadium.
“We’re trying to stay healthy,” head coach Urban Meyer said yesterday to begin his weekly address to the media. “It seems like it’s been about a month-and-a-half since we played. The coaches are tired of practicing. The players are tired of practicing.
“Each day of practice, it comes down to keeping your guys healthy and still maintaining that element of toughness you like to have on defense and offense. … You just have to be very smart in practice, and a lot of time is being spent on being smart.”
Not only will the Falcons have to be smart this week, but in order to beat the Tigers, they will have to be smart Saturday night. Unlike last year, when BG may have taken Missouri a bit by surprise, the visitors will be ready this year, but not only are the Tigers a year smarter, they have one more year of experience under second-year coach Gary Pinkel, a former BG assistant and Toledo head coach.
Combine Pinkel’s insertion of a new attitude and work ethic in Columbia with talented players, and you have a confident 2-0 football team.
“I’m glad we are playing Missouri in the first two years [under Pinkel], and not [the third],” Meyer said. “I have never studied a team more [than Pinkel’s Toledo teams], and it’s more the chemistry of the team, the way they play. There’s a lot of ways to evaluate a team, and when coaches or fans say that ‘your team plays hard, they play with passion,’ I like that. Those are the things you see with Missouri. In four years, this team will be right at the top of that conference.”
Speaking of the Tigers’ talent, it has been the Brad Smith show in the first two games. Much like BG quarterback Josh Harris, who has the ability to make plays on the ground or through the air, Smith has rushed and passed for over 100 yards in each of the first two Missouri games. Those efforts resulted in wins over defending Big Ten champion Illinois and MAC school Ball State. Meyer knows what his team is up against in Smith.
“When you look at a quarterback, you look to see if he can sidestep a lineman and deliver the ball. Can he sidestep a blitzing linebacker and make a play? Can he run for 15-20 yards when they only rush three players? He’s the prototype guy everyone’s looking for, as he poses a number of problems for the defense.
There’s no such thing as doubling a receiver with a guy like him.”
Smith, a native of Youngstown, Ohio, torched Illinois, rushing for 147 yards and passing for another 152, while passing for 176 yards and rushing for another 105 Saturday against Ball State.
Perhaps herein lies the advantage of BG’s week off: plenty of time to study Smith and develop a scheme to stop the Freshman All-American candidate. Falcon senior linebacker Chris Haneline knows how important stopping Smith and MU’s offense is.
“They are a very different team than last year,” Haneline said.
“They are playing extremely confidently, and they look very impressive on film. … [Smith] is the leader of the offense, and he’s a tremendous athlete. He’s extremely fast, throws the ball very well, and makes good reads on the field. Their running back is back, and he’s a hard-nosed guy. It’s been a good week with some good, hard practices, and it’s been good to watch them on the field and develop schemes against them.”
