The football team will head into Saturday’s game against Kent State knowing that it controls its own destiny in the Mid-American Conference West division.

Simply put, if BG can win its next three games, they will represent the west in the MAC title game, which would be held at Doyt Perry Stadium.

But this week’s game against Kent means that BG will have to defend against the Golden Flashes’ quarterback Joshua Cribbs, who leads Kent in both passing and rushing yards.

Falcon cornerback Janssen Patton said that Cribbs can dominate in several areas of the game.

“He’s one of those guys where if you focus everything on him, he’ll find some other way to beat you,” Patton said. “We can’t focus on him running because he’s shown the ability this year to throw.”

In last year’s game at Kent, the Falcons were dominant, coming away with a 45-14 thrashing. But Cribbs shined in defeat, rushing for 91 yards.

This season, he has thrown for 1,974 yards and 12 touchdowns. Defensive lineman Will Teague said that after last week’s loss to Miami, the challenge for the defense will be to come back strong against a tough quarterback in Cribbs.

“We know we’re facing a really good athlete, a great quarterback,” Teague said. “He’s got a great arm, and we just have to get back to the basics.”

Teague said that holding Cribbs will be a big part of he Falcon defensive plan.

“We gotta start off by containing Josh Cribbs,” Teague said. “He makes plays.”

Cribbs made the plays Saturday in Kent’s road win over Ohio, rallying the team from a 20-3 second quarter deficit. His seven-yard touchdown run with 1:29 remaining clinched the team’s 37-33 victory.

The touchdown run was Cribb’s fourth of the game, and went along with 250 yards passing. The performance was good enough to earn Cribbs the MAC Offensive Player of the Week award.

Patton said that Cribbs and Kent will come in motivated. BG has won 13 of the last 15 meetings between the two, and has not lost a home game to them since since Richard Nixon was president, in 1972.

The last time BG lost to the golden Flashes was in 1999, when they came away with 41-27 win over the Falcons.

“I know that they want to beat a team that has beaten them for the last three years,” Patton said. “We’ve had success against them, but you can’t rest your hopes on that, because they are coming into the game with a different attitude, and they’re obviously playing better this year.”