BG had enough time to beat Western Michigan.

Actually, they had more than enough.

In Saturday’s win over the Broncos, BG had the ball for 40 minutes and 38 seconds.

They had enough time to run 88 plays, run the ball 49 times and get 29 first downs.

They also had a defense that was constantly fresh and aggressive.

The Falcons simply controlled the game.

Falcons coach Gregg Brandon said the amount of time that BG had the ball in the game surprised him.

“That’s amazing to me … gosh,” Brandon said.

Brandon said it was important to keep Western Michigan’s big-play offense off the field.

“We knew that they had that kind of offense,” Brandon said. “… we hung on just long enough on offense to salt it away.”

Western Michigan was only able to run 56 plays on offense, making it difficult to come back on BG after it took a big lead.

Janssen Patton, who had three interceptions in the win, said that the secondary was able to play better against the Broncos’ wide receivers because of how little time they spent on the field.

“{Western Michigan] has got receivers that can run for days,” Patton said. “After a while your body starts wearing down when you have to keep going deep … when [our offense] gets us off the field, they give us time to rest.”

The Broncos were able to get a couple of big plays off the Falcons secondary, but never held the ball for longer than 3:07 at a time.

The Falcon defense forced four turnovers on interceptions by Patton, and Mike Thaler also had three sacks.

“Our defense did a tremendous job,” Brandon said. “… Our pass rush was awesome, and coach [Tim] Beckman had some nice things and some nice blitzes.

The Falcons were also able to control the game with their running attack. Not only did the team get 224 yards on the ground, but four different players had over 30 yards rushing.

P.J Pope led the way with 99 yards, and Harris put up 57. B.J. Lane and Cole Magner also gained over 30 yards.