Many Falcon Football fans are still celebrating the upset that took place on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, where Bowling Green walked out of Bobby Dodd Stadium with a 38-27 statement win over Georgia Tech.
But staying focused and calm mentally as the Falcons are heading into Mid-American play was the hot topic at the Monday press conference for the orange and brown.
“I just believed that our players were finally older, more mature,” said head coach Scot Loeffler. “They believe that they’re good, and they are good. And everything’s right now about us, we just got to make sure that we’re right…. The challenge is to go into games and have your mind right and do all the things that it takes mentally to get ready for a game. I know our guys are ready to do that.”
Being mentally strong will always be something you have to keep an eye on when coaching football, but Loeffler knew his guys were ready on Wednesday of last week
“I knew we were going to beat Georgia Tech on Wednesday; I just know these guys,” said Loeffler. “I know how they think, I know how they act. I would have never said that publicly. But I knew that we were going to beat Georgia Tech and I knew it wasn’t going to be close to be quite honest with you. I knew that we would walk in there and we would play our tails off.”
Part of how that was done? Finn Hogan’s performance. The sophomore wide receiver is coming off of a career game of 102 yards on six catches.
“He’s gonna be a really good player, and he’ll be that that hybrid position that we play with that has chances of going on to the next level just because of what we do with them,” said Loeffler. “He does every every single thing on and off the field the right way and he’s so grateful to be here. He likes our culture, he likes our team, he likes our coaches. Normally those people are going to be successful, and it proved out on Saturday for sure. It’s not going to be the last time that you’re gonna see Finn Hogan’s name.”
Quarterback Connor Bazelak had much of the same to say about his leading receiver on Saturday.
“Yeah, that was awesome,” said Bazelak. “He’s a great guy and from the moment he got here, I think it was in June, I was telling Coach Warner that this guy’s gonna help us out this year. And sure enough, in week five he goes for 100 yards and catch of the year, so it was really cool.”
Speaking of Bazelak, Loeffler made it clear that along with Bazelak and Hogan, the team played their best football of the year.
“I thought he [Bazelak] took care of the football, had a really good grasp of the game plan and he executed really well,” said Loeffler. “To be quite honest with you, this is the first game that statistically that’s how we want to be, we want to rush for 150 to 200 yards and if you take out the penalties, we rushed for over 200 yards, throw for 250 10/17 on third down, the defense was to evade on third down, Our defense only played 58 snaps. You know, that’s how we want to play football.”
We now are entering week six of the year, almost the middle of the season, so for Loeffler, he knows that you only get a certain amount of opportunities each and every year
“I think they’re all huge. You only get 12 of them, every game means something and so now it’s week to week game to game taking one step at a time,” said Loeffler. “Every game is big, you only get so many shots, and you work 365 days for those shots.”
Something that has been the talk for Loeffler’s teams for quite some time now is, well you guessed it.
Consistency.
“I thought we walked in with confidence, I thought we walked in very focused, with some swagger to be quite honest with you,” said Loeffler. “After what happened the week previously, you know we need to be able to walk into stadiums carefree just because we knew that we’re confident that we put the work in during the week, and then our minds are right walking into the stadium. If we do that, we’ll be competitive.”
That was the sentiment of the coaches. For the players? Pretty much the same thing.
“Yeah, that’s that’s the million-dollar question,” said Bazelak. “I think we just got to continue, preparing, like we have all year. I mean, it’s just it’s another game on our schedule. You know, I think like I said last week, just taking each game one game at a time and not looking forward to the next game. Every game has the same amount of importance to us and it all starts tomorrow with a good Tuesday practice.”
So yes, BGSU had themselves a fun weekend, but Loeffler and the team know they have to stay focused.
Let’s see if they can keep the ball rolling against a tough MAC opponent in Miami.
Kickoff is at 3:30 from Yager Stadium in Oxford on Saturday.
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