I hate this game, will have a big sigh of relief if and when we survive with a win. I do vividly recall last year in Athens thinking "Wow BG is really terrible" when we played them. I felt the blowout win could've been even bigger. Holding Michigan to just 31 seems like an accomplishment. As long as we avoid a horrific turnover margin and/or avoid multiple big plays from them, we should be fine.
I agree this game is scary af. These guys ripped Toledo last year. Remember them? I was amazed our clincher against them was a blowout. We've had the better team multiple times and still left the doyt tail between legs. Huge, difficult roadie to start the conference season.
I think that Toledo put about as much effort into that game as we did against Long Island. Bowling Green won so many close games last year where the other team was without its quarterback, or in CMUs case Lew Nichols and they got blown out by several different MAC teams including Ohio missing the MAC player of the year and lost their FCS game. You do have to hand it to them for beating Marshall. However, they were one of the worst teams to ever be bowl eligible. I'll bet the odds makers would have had them as a bottom 15 FBS teams.
This is a road game and our would be prolific offense hasn't showed and if it doesn't show for this one it will be a very tough one to win. 8 or 9 points seems about right but if is another low scoring game it will be closer than that and we could very easily lose.
It is still realistic to think the offense that led the MAC is scoring in spite of playing two top 15 defenses non-conference and playing without the MAC player of the year for 3 1/2 games will show at some point. We basically have 10 offensive starters from that unit, Rourke didn't have a full camp, has likely had a concussion, and Wiglusz, Jones, Cross, and Foster have all been on the field about half as much as you'd have hoped. That's gonna kill your passing attack.
If we can get the defense that showed up late last year and so far this year back with the offense from last year before Rourke went down then I think it is going to very difficult for most MAC teams to beat us. We haven't seen it yet.
Last Edited: 9/18/2023 6:39:00 PM by Victory