Bowling Green is beginning a streak that should be concerning to all who follow – they’re shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly, and it’s costing them games.
In Saturday’s game against Ohio, they turned the ball over three times in the first half, including two fumbles that the Bobcats returned for scores.
Two of those put them down 21 points only 10 minutes into the game.
“First half was the ugliest half I’ve ever seen in coaching,” head coach Scot Loeffler said postgame. “The ball slipped out of Connor’s hands on the third down for a pick six. There was a strip fumble for 60 yards and started 21 points behind. That’s really tough to recover from. We talked about all week long playing super hard through the whistles and not beating ourselves.”
The coaching staff knew this was going to be a battle, and they knew that Ohio was a team that plays tough, yet the team still did not feel ready to go.
They were penalized 12 times for over 120 yards, including five unsportsmanlike conduct calls that resulted in three ejections.
“We can clean up the turnovers, you have seen that. 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,” said Loeffler. “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.”
But that’s something we’ve heard and have been asking for since week one against Liberty.
In all three losses for BG, they’ve combined for 12 turnovers. They’re losing the turnover battle in those games 12-6, and they’ve been penalized 23 times for 224 yards.
“It’s pretty tough to win when you beat yourself, you can’t turn the ball over in the MAC East, especially early, those are just killers,” tight end Levi Gazarek said after the game. “I think we really just got to go home and look in the mirror when it comes to stuff like that. Just play between the whistles, that’s the biggest thing.”
In their lone win this season against Eastern Illinois, they didn’t have a single turnover and were only penalized six times for 60 yards.
So what is the recipe for success? It’s simple- stop the self-inflicted wounds.
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