BOWLING GREEN PREVIEW

The Bowling Green Falcons arrive in Columbia 1-0 after overcoming a 14-0 deficit in the 2nd quarter to beat Sun Belt Conference favorite Troy 31-14. Before we go any further, Troy is legit. They were a bowl team a year ago and had the top defense and #2 offense in their conference. So let’s not confuse Troy with some pushover chumpster team. This was a big win for Bowling Green, make no mistake. Player of the game was Sr WR Freddie Barnes who caught a school-record 15 balls for 157 yards and two scores. That was good for MAC player of the week honors. You probably already know that Bowling Green has beaten Mizzou the last two times they’ve played, a fact Pinkel has said he’d be sure to hammer home this week. You might even know that the Tigers are 1-3 historically against the Falcons. But what you might not know about this Falcon crew is that they went 6-6 last season, only missing a bowl berth due to their loss at Northern Illinois. They went 5-2 on the road (losses at Boise St and Northern IL), knocking off a Pitt team (in Pittsburgh) that would finish 9-4. Point: they have played in big environments against good teams before – I don’t expect them to be intimidated.

When Bowling Green has the ball…
Sr QB Tyler Sheehan is at the helm of the offense, his third year as a starter. He has thrown for over 6,400 yards and 45 TDs in his career, completing 65% of his passes. Pretty good numbers. He led the team in carries and ran for 7 scores last year. As previously mentioned, Freddie Barnes (their top returning receiver) had a breakout game in the first week so the Tigers must keep an eye on him. Also note that Barnes threw 2 TDs in 4 pass attempts last year – watch out for him on trick plays (double-pass, end-around pass…) Another target, Sr WR Tyrone Pronty is out with broken foot. He hauled in 6 receptions vs Troy. Some other WR that will see time but didn’t get in the mix a ton vs Troy are Sr Chris Wright, Soph Adrian Hodges and Soph Ray Hutson. Sr TE Jimmy Scheidler had only 15 catches a year ago, 7 going for TDs. Sheehan found him 4 times last week for 72 yards. Overall they’re returning 6 guys with 10+ catches a year ago. On the ground, they go with a 2-back approach. Jr RB Willie Geter, is their little scatback (5’ 8”, 170lbs) and has averaged 6.3 ypc in his career. Sr RB Chris Bullock (5’11”, 218 lbs) is the other half of this duo – 4.4 ypc in his career. The Falcon offensive line returns 3 starters, two of whom are 5th year seniors. They have some good experience on offense. They have a first-year Head Coach in Dave Clawson who was with the Tennessee Volunteers as the O-Coordinator in 2008. Prior to UT, he was head coach at Richmond College (Football Championship Subdivision formerly known as D1-AA) from 2004-2007 and there he won two Coach of the Year awards. The Tennessee offense was a hot mess last year, near the bottom of the SEC in all statistical categories, no experience at the QB position, etc. (In a delicious twist of irony, UT is #1 in total offense after week 1 with 657 yards vs perennial POWERHOUSE Western Kentucky…who I actually believe is only in their 2nd year of D1, 2-10 a year ago…I think they join the Sun Belt conference in 2010 but I’m getting sidetracked here.) For what it’s worth, Clawson’s pass/run ratio a year ago was only 43% passing, however, in week 1 vs Troy, Bowling Green threw the ball on 44 of 72 snaps (61%). Attribute that to an experienced QB in Sheehan as well as the fact that they were trailing early in that game. They were 4 for 13 in converting 3rd downs and only faced one 3rd and short (1-3 yards) so they passed on 11 of those snaps, completing 6 but only half of those yielded first downs. For the game they averaged 1.8 yards per carry. Again, that Troy defense is pretty solid, but this is still not an impressive number. They want to pass the ball but aren’t quick to abandon that run. They trailed for nearly half the game and during the time that they were losing, they ran the ball 18 times (out of 28 total rushes). Seems a little backward – running the ball when behind and passing more when ahead…but hey, it worked. They have a Fr K, Jerry Phillips, who made his only attempt, a 21 yarder.

When Bowling Green is on defense…
The Falcons lost 8 starters on defense from a decent 2008 squad. In their conference, they finished 2nd in Total D (5th vs run and 2nd vs pass) and 4th in scoring D. That total D number from a season ago, 343 yards allowed per game, put them in the middle of the pack nationally. They start 3 senior LB: Jerret Sanderson, Cody Basler and James Schneider. The Falcons are undersized and inexperienced on the defensive line, starting four new guys. This should be an area Mizzou can exploit in the running game going up against the big Tiger O-Line (avg 6’4”, 308lbs). In the secondary they bring back senior safeties PJ Mahone and Jahmal Brown. Mahone led the team in tackles a year ago. At CB, they have a rotation going including Sr Roger Williams (who collected a team-high 10 tackles last week), Jr Robert Lorenzi, Soph Keith Morgan, Soph Adrien Spencer and a freshman duo of Tim Moore and Jonathan Davis. Sr Punter Nick Ivonelli was a 3rd team all-MAC performer last year with a 40+ average. He punted 5 times for 37.6 yards last week.

How I see it going down…
Mizzou has the athletic advantage in every facet of this game. I am interested to watch how the DE trio of the Smiths and Coulter get pressure on Sheehan and if the Tigers rely on predominantly four rushers like they did last week vs IL. The Bowling Green O-Line allowed only 1 sack to Troy last week – Mizzou will try to turn up the heat, in my estimation, a little more than they did against Juice Williams because Sheehan isn’t the runner that Juice is. Losing a possession receiver like Pronty will force somebody to step up but let’s not confuse this receiver corps with what IL threw at the Tigers last week, with or without Benn. I think Gettis will draw Freddie Barnes, and after watching him play vs the Illini, I’m liking my chances with that matchup. He just looks like a different player this year (must be the 15lbs he dropped). I don’t see Bowling Green running the ball on Mizzou effectively given their lack of success against Troy a week ago (1.79 yards per carry) and how Mizzou played against Illinois (3.14 ypc allowed). Conversely, I see the Tigers having a much better ground game against the youthful (and light) Falcon D-Line. You’re going to see superior players in the trenches for Mizzou on both sides of the ball, which will make a huge difference in the running game. Expect Washington to have a big game, something in the 120-140 yard range. I would imagine Kendial Lawrence, as the 2nd string back this week, will get double digit touches. The Tiger rushing attack will force the safeties to play up, opening a lot of spots for Gabbert to go downfield to his talented receivers. Those two safeties are good ballplayers and have some experience but the corners are still getting their feet wet in D1 football. Danario is 5” taller than any corner on their roster so there are some built-in size mismatches that the Tigers can exploit. Overall, this is a good mid-level opponent for Missouri in their 2nd game…possibly the best test they’ll have overall in the non-conference season after seeing Illinois basically roll over and play dead after the first quarter and seeing that Nevada got spanked by 5 TDs at Notre Dame. This is certainly not a 100% pushover game but I think Coach Pinkel has excelled in the past 3-4 years at getting his team ready to play every week, especially against lesser opponents. Back in the day, you could bet that Mizzou just wouldn’t show up for a game each year that they were supposed to win but I’d like to think those days have passed. The team seems focused and appears to still have a chip on its shoulder. I like that. Hope it stays there all year. For a final, I’ll go Tigers over Falcons, 43-17.

TIDBITS TO HELP YOU DOMINATE WATERCOOLER CONVERSATION

Mizzou is 4-0 under Pinkel the week after beating Illinois, with an average margin of victory in those games of 31.25pts

8 Tigers made their first career start last week vs Illinois (Gabbert, Kemp, Hoch & Wuebbels on offense; Resonno, Gachkar and Rutland on defense; also Ressel the kicker)

Speaking of Ressel, allow me to introduce you to the conference leader in FG/game…

JGD man-crush Blaine Gabbert leads the Big XII Conference in passing efficiency, completion pct, TD passes and bicep girth for starting QBs