BGSU football fell to Central Michigan Chippewas 27-6 at Doyt L. Perry Stadium Saturday afternoon on the backs of a big game from quarterback Angel Flores, who rushed for three touchdowns.
“Extremely disappointed in really in the whole outcome of the game. Clearly didn’t get the job done. That falls on my shoulders. I didn’t have this team ready to play coming off of last week,” said Mike and Jan Wilcox Head Football Coach Eddie George postgame. “My hat goes off to Central Michigan, that came in with a phenomenal game plan. They stuck to it. We made some errors early on that they took advantage of.”
Quarterback Drew Pyne was ruled out for the second consecutive week, giving Lucian Anderson III his second career start.
Anderson and the offense started the game with the ball, as their first drive of the day started out positive on the ground with redshirt freshman running back Cameron Pettaway and Anderson rushing for over 20 yards on their first drive, not passing once.
The Falcons got all the way down to the CMU 15-yard line, but a few negative plays and penalties set the Falcons back to the Central Michigan 25-yard line, which had the Falcons settle for a Jackson Kleather field goal, giving BG the early 3-0 lead.
Central Michigan runs a rare two-man quarterback room, and both guys were in full swing today.
Quarterback Joe Labas started CMU’s first drive with a few quarterback keepers and rushed for a first down to start the day, but was met with an early third down. However, the Falcons’ defense got an early stop and forced a punt, giving the ball back to the BG offense.
Central Michigan and Bowling Green then exchanged punts, with the Falcons starting a drive at their own 8-yard line with some positive yards on the ground again by Pettaway, but the first turnover of the game occurred with a screen pass being tipped right into the hands of CMU’s Jordan Kwiatkowski as he took it all the way down to the 1-yard line.
“I definitely think I should have caught it, and I’ll take the blame for that,” Pettaway said. “But we just have to move on from that, and we couldn’t do that, but just gotta bounce back next time.”
On the defensive side after that interception, linebacker Gideon Lampron believes the defense has to do its job and says since they didn’t force a single turnover, games won’t be won like that.
“Yeah, that was definitely a big blow. But, you know, we gotta do what we need to do as a defense to get the ball back,” Lampron said. “We didn’t force a single turnover today, so we’re not gonna win games like that.”
Flores then was the Central quarterback with prime field position, as he ran one in on first and goal for the game’s first touchdown, giving the Chippewas the 7-3 lead early in the second quarter.
It looked like the chain of punts was going to continue as the Falcons punted it away, with the Chippewas faced with a third-and-10 at their own 21. Labas then found Collin Payne up the middle for 63 yards, which set up CMU in the red zone.
Central Michigan then cashed in the opportunity as Flores rushed in his second score of the day, giving the Chippewas a 14-3 lead with eight minutes to go until the second quarter.
Bowling Green’s offense then stalled out again on their next drive and was set to punt it away, but punter John Henderson decided to keep it and try to get the first down with the short yardage, but came up short, giving the ball back to CMU at the Falcons’ 27-yard line.
Central Michigan was then able to cash that in for another three points as Cade Graham made the 38-yard field goal, extending the CMU lead to 14 as they held a 17-3 lead with under four minutes to go in the half.
Anderson connected with tight end Jyrin Johnson for a 17-yard pickup and Kaderris Roberts for 16 yards, which got the Falcons across the 50-yard line and to the Central Michigan 31-yard line. The Falcons settled for another field goal, as Kleather nailed his second of the day, this time from 49 yards, making it a 17-6 ballgame heading into halftime.
The wind was definitely a factor for both offenses when it came to throwing the ball, as at the half, CMU finished with 64 yards and BG finished with 44 yards through the air.
The offense didn’t seem to click, especially early on and it was tough to come back from that. Pettaway believes they just have to stay up and not get too down on themselves.
“We just gotta stay up, can’t get down. When you get negative, things start going bad,” Pettaway said. “You just gotta try and keep the offense up and keep them moving.”
The wind only picked up throughout the day as CMU received the ball to begin the second half. Central Michigan continued to pound the rock and was set up perfectly thanks to a 37-yard pick up by redshirt freshman Brock Townsend, who took it to the BGSU 1-yard line.
Flores then continued his career day rushing in yet another touchdown to extend the Chippewas’ lead to 24-6.
The Falcons’ first drive of the second half had the Falcons meet with a fourth-and-1 at their own 34-yard line as Eddie George elected to keep the offence on the field and go for it.
Mar’Kel Porter got the ball on the fourth down call for a rush but was met short of the line to gain, which gave Central Michigan the ball back in Falcons territory.
CMU used that field advantage and turned it into another three points, which added to their lead with seven minutes to go in the third quarter.
For the Bowling Green offense, RJ Garcia ll was able to create some momentum as an end-around resulted in a 23-yard gain. A pass interference on Central Michigan and a Lucian Anderson seven-yard rush had the Falcons into CMU territory.
But personal fouls and unsportsmanlike conducts plagued the Falcons all game as a personal foul on Tunde Fatukasi set the Falcons back and forced them to settle for a punt.
The Falcons ended the game with 15 penalties for 125 yards on the day.
“It’s poise. We lack poise and talk about our identity being fast, physical, and disciplined,” George said. “A lot of those personal fouls, I have to go look at it. I think it was a face mask or whatever it was; they can’t have that. That’s discipline.”
A few punt exchanges later had us enter the fourth quarter with Anderson throwing his second pick of the day.
Jaion Jackson intercepted the pass for the Chippewas at the CMU 45-yard line and took it all the way down to the BG 36-yard line.
The two teams then exchanged punts throughout the fourth quarter to end the game as Central Michigan came away victorious 27-6, as they improved to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in conference on the season, while Bowling Green fell to 3-4 and 1-2 in conference.
The Bowling Green offense seemed to struggle to find a rhythym throughout the game.
“Just trying to find a rhythm. Again, this is Lucian’s second game, and we’re trying to put him in a position to be successful. Our run game didn’t- didn’t show up for us today like we thought it should have to help him. You know, we had to be efficient in the run game and we didn’t do that earlier on,“ said George. “So we found ourselves in a lot of third-and-long situations and getting three-and-outs, and then it got away from us. So, um, this is part of the process of finding, you know, that part, of finding a rhythm.“
The Falcons travel to face off against Kent State on Saturday at noon at Dix Stadium.
