The Bowling Green Falcons welcomed to defending MAC East Division champion Ohio Bobcats to Doyt Perry Stadium earlier Saturday afternoon for BG’s 101st homecoming celebration.
These two faced off on the final weekend of college football last season, a game where we saw the winner advance to Detroit the following week, with Ohio defeating BG 38-14
And this weekend, OU topped their performance from last year.
The Falcons received the ball first and right away the Bobcat defense, which is ranked 6th in the country, showed some toughness, as Keye Thompson picked off a slipped ball by quarterback Connor Bazelak.
It appeared as if the Falcons had regained the football when Thompson fumbled the ball, but a review overturned it. claiming his knee was down and giving the Ohio offense prime position in the red zone.
It was there where Kurtis Rourke, the defending MAC offensive player of the year, took only two plays to find the end zone, putting the Bobcats up seven quick on the Falcons.
A three-and-out for Bowling Green gave the ball right back to the Ohio offense
The Bobcats again drove down the field, this time for a longer 79 yards, and scored another touchdown to make things 14-0 early right away.
The Bowling Green offense finally got some momentum when Terion Stewart broke free for 29 yards by getting across midfield for the Falcons. A seven yard catch by Odieu Hiliare and an eight yard run by Bazelak set the Falcons up nicely near the red zone.
Yet again though the Bobcat’s defense showed why they’re so highly ranked on that side of the ball, as Thompson stripped the ball from running back Jamal Johnson and took it all the way to the house to put the Bobcats up 21-0.
The Falcons yet again went three and out a drive later, giving the ball to Ohio once again.
But the Falcon defense came up big, causing the field goal unit to come out, where Ohio missed the kick off the upright.
However, Bowling Green yet again punted, resulting in Ohio getting a field goal, which increased their lead to 24
From here, the Falcon offense struggled even more when they gave up yet another takeaway to the shining Ohio defense via a Roman Parodie fumble recovery on the first play of the ensuing drive, blowing the doors open at 31-0.
The score remained that heading into halftime, which was the first time BG has been shut out in the first half of a regular season game since the Nov. 9 matchup versus Kent State a season ago.
In the half, Bowling Green had just three first downs.
The second half started with an Ohio punt, giving the ball back to BG, but the Ohio defense got their fourth takeaway of the day via their second interception off Bazelak around midfield.
Scoring resumed in the second half with a 10-play, 77-yard drive for Ohio that increased their lead to 38-0.
The following drive finally put the Falcons on the board, when Stewart broke off a run of 46 yards to OU’s four-yard line, where just a play later, Stewart found the end zone for six.
The game ended with the scoring being 38–7 in favor of the Bobcats
Stewart led the way today with 12 carries for 107 yards and a touchdown, his third touchdown of the season.
In the end of an unfortunate day for BG, three players get ejected; two for unsportsmanlike conduct and one via a targeting penalty.
And the penalties didn’t help either, as the Falcons had over 100 yards in penalties via a dozen yellow flags.
Head coach Scot Loeffler was not very pleased with the performance today.
“We can clean up the turnovers, you have seen that,” said Loeffler. “We are feast or famine right now on turnovers. We can do everything right and we can also look like we did in the first half. We will clean that up. I’m disappointed. I asked our team to play super hard and to make sure we played super hard between the whistles, and we were poor outside of the whistles. That is not how football should be played.”
Bowling Green is back in action next week as they face off against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
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