 Bowling Green, OH - Dressed in a massive sea of orange the friendly confines of Perry Stadium became Turnover City Saturday night for Bowling Green.
Five turnovers, including three lost fumbles inside their own 30-yard line, doomed the Falcons in the first-ever matchup with a Big Ten team at Perry Stadium. Minnesota turned four of the turnovers into touchdowns to pull away from the Falcons for a 42-17 victory.
Bowling Green trailed only 14-10 at the half and 21-17 when the third quarter ended. All three of Minnesota’s fourth-quarter touchdowns came after BG turnovers.
“It wasn’t so much Minnesota beating us there in the end. I think we beat ourselves in the second half of that football game,” said BG head coach Gregg Brandon. “We just turned the ball over. That’s the bottom line. There is no magical statement about what happened in that game. To lose the game the way we did was just very, very disappointing."
The effort was in sharp contrast to the previous week when Bowling Green forced four turnovers in a 27-17 upset of Pittsburgh.
“The teams that have beaten Bowling Green have forced it to turn the football over,” Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster said. “We did that in a big way.”
Falcons quarterback Tyler Sheehan stressed that the team lost the game, not one individual.
“We expect everybody to do their job,” Sheehan said. ”There were cases where, it’s hard for you guys (the media) to know, but I didn’t do my job and it hurt the team just as much as a fumble or something like that."
“It’s a complete team effort, this loss was,” he continued. “It’s disheartening that we let this one go. But we just have to learn from it.”
Bowling Green’s downfall started on the first play of the second half when Roger Williams fumbled the kickoff and Minnesota recovered at the 23-yard line. Brandon challenged the ruling on the fumble, but video review upheld the call on the field. Minnesota would capitalize just over two minutes later on Adam Weber’s TD pass to a wide-open Nathan Tow-Arnett.
The Falcons then moved 80 yards in eight plays to pull within 21-17 with 8:56 remaining in the third quarter. Sheehan found a wide-open Chris Wright for the score on a 27-yard pass play.
Just over two minutes later, the Falcons were faced with a third-and-1 at their own 40-yard line, but Sheehan could not find his target and BG had to punt.
The tide then turned at the beginning of the fourth quarter, when Sheehan threw an interception after Wright appeared to stop on his route down the sideline.
The Falcons looked like they might survive the turnover when on the first play after starting center Jeff Tow-Arnett had to be helped off the field, the snap was high with Weber in the shotgun. He tracked the ball down, then whirled and completed a 14-yard pass to Ben Kuniza on a third-and-9 play. Five plays later Weber connected with Eric Decker on a 28-yard scoring play to make it 28-17.
BG’s next two possessions both ended in Willie Geter fumbles and the Golden Gophers would score each time, taking advantage of the short field, to put the game away.
“As hard as we train together, we’re kind of playing for each other,” Sheehan said. “I think it’s more disappointing for us as a team than letting the fans down and everything else, because we are so close. Seeing those guys struggle, drop the ball, fumble, or anything like that, it hurts an individual on the team as much as it hurts that person.”
Sheehan was 29-of-44 passing for 261 yards as the Falcons had 389 yards in total offense.
“I think we moved the ball great. We just shot ourselves in the foot with turnovers,” Sheehan said.
Weber finished the game 21-of-25 passing for 233 yards and three scores as Minnesota had 397 yards in total offense. The Golden Gophers are 2-0 this season after going 1-11 in 2007.
“It was one of those days that defensively we could have stepped up and played a better game,” Haneline said. “We didn’t execute the way we wanted in certain situations. They didn’t surprise too much. We could have played better as a team.” |
