I'd like to say this is going to be brief because I am on vacation and I spent the whole day hiking, enjoying NYC food, and having fun with my kids so I just logged in to put up the losers banner from my little bet with FalconBlog.
If I said that it would be mostly honest but the truth is thinking about another collapse, piss poor special teams effort and a complete inability of the offense to adjust at halftime (or make adjustments to the other teams adjustments) makes me so sick that even if I was in Antarctica with nothing else to do but blog I would be just as brief.
For a few minutes in the second half I had to rub my eyes to make sure it was not a replay of the UCF game. Lets see...
- Dominating First half ... Check
- Second half of terrible offense ... Check
- Awful special teams ... Check
- Orange helmets ... Ok it was a different game
Quarterback (C-)
Even with the second half fall off Maynard was still in B territory but that last drive was just too much stink to give him a respectable grade. His passes were all over the place, he had happy feet, and on the final UB play he lost track of where he had to go for the first down.
I'm still big on him for the future but tonight he showed he is nowhere near taking a team which is winded on his shoulders and doing anything with it.
Running Backs (B-)
On top of some solid recruits coming in how nice was it to see Jeffvon Gill drop 174. Like every other aspect of UB play he fell off, badly, in the second half but that's because Bowling Green made adjustments and the UB coaching staff just did not get off the same page they had been on all nights.
Wide Receivers (B-)
Not a night for big numbers but with 260+ yards on the ground you can't grade receivers on their touches and yards. For the most part the passes that needed to be caught (and should have been caught) were caught. Routes were well run, blocking was solid when needed.
Offensive Line (C)
How the heck was a three man rush getting to Maynard in the 4th quarter? The coaches own the failure beyond the line but the failure at the line is all with the guys on the field.
Coaching (F)
Three Things:
Number 1: 1:39 plus three timeouts is enough time to march the field twice so why in the hell did you decide to kill time when you had the Falcons on the ropes? This is not a charity game if you have your foot on their throat push down, HARD!
Number 2: Clawson is a good coach you had to know he was going to make adjustments at the half... you do know you're allowed to stray from the game plan? Right? There is no reason the offense should have been so predictable during the second half.
Number 3: Stop playing conservative football, it has been killing us this season. If you are up 13 try to go up 20 don't play to kill time that never works.
Defensive Line (B+)
Some more pressure on Clawson would have been nice but they did a phenomenal job stopping the run. They also got to Clawson *enough* to force a few bad throws.
Line Backers (B+)
Nice job jamming up the short stuff, decent tackling, really did their part this week.
Defensive Backs (B)
Hey you held Barnes to less than 10 catches and, up until the very end, under 100 yards. Not a bad showing.
Defensive Coaching (C+)
Overall the defense did a fine job, 14 bowling green points came off of blocked punts and the defense was playing a short field almost the whole second half. My only beef was the soft coverage on the last Bowling Green Drive, that has not worked at any point this year for the love of Pete please rip those pages out of the playbook.
Special Teams (F)
Two blocked punts? Look if the Falcons are going to send everything at each punt run a fake even if it fails it will make them *think* about not rushing 10 guys.