It’s what they call the stretch run.
The time in a team’s season when they find out just what direction their team is headed in.
This is exactly where the Bowling Green (5-2, 3-1) football team is heading into a showdown with Eastern Michigan (3-4, 3-1) this Saturday.
For the Falcons, it looks as if though their season is taking a step in the right direction as they have won their past four games by an average score of 50-15.
The offense has been on a roll and the defense has been living in opposing team’s backfields during this run.
After starting the season cold on sacks, the BG defensive line has livened up and gotten 13 sacks in their past four games.
“It’s a combination of things,” BG head coach Gregg Brandon said. “Our pass rush has always been effective and for some reason early on this year it disappeared.”
And although it has been a team effort at getting the sacks, it is BG’s usual suspects that are putting the pressure on the quarterback. Defensive ends Mitchell Crossley and Devon Parks have stepped their games up and at this point have combined for 40 tackles and four sacks.
“Mitch Crossley has not played at that level until the last couple weeks and now he’s started to gain some of that All-MAC performance level back,” Brandon said. “And Devon Parks is the same way, he’s a very effective pass rusher.”
At this point last year, the team was sitting pretty on top of the MAC. But a conference opening loss has changed the team’s outlook on how to approach games.
“The Northern Illinois loss, for our defense, was a wake up call,” Brandon said. “We have to play every game hard, we can’t just show up and expect to beat people.”
BG knows this is week’s game against the Eagles will be no different. Eastern quarterback Matt Bohnet has been one of the biggest surprises this season in the MAC, throwing for 1,728 yards and 15 touchdowns while racking up 306.9 yards of total offense per game, good for third in the conference.
“Eastern is vastly improved, particularly offensively,” Brandon said. “Their quarterback is being efficient and taking care of the football.”
But that is not all for Eastern, their top wide out Eric Deslauriers has 49 catches this season for 755 yards and eight touchdowns and their running back, Anthony Sherrell, has the ability to give the Falcons nightmares. In last season’s game against BG, he had 187 yards and a touchdown in a 33-20 loss.
“The one receiver is a very good player,” Brandon said. “I like him. And Sherrell had a good game against us last year … we need to tackle that guy, because we didn’t last year.”
Recently, the Eagles have managed to pull out wins late in their last two games. Brandon is hoping the same trend does not continue Saturday.
“They found a way in the fourth quarter to beat Western Michigan and they found a way in the fourth quarter to beat Ball State,” Brandon said. “I don’t want them hanging around in the fourth quarter, I’ll guarantee you that.”
