 PHILADELPHIA, PA — It’s very possible in a few years that people will look back on Bowling Green’s 28-27 loss to Temple on Saturday as the turning point of Dave Clawson’s tenure as Falcons’ head coach. While the loss hurts, it could be a defeat that helps mold Bowling Green into a better football team in the future.
The Falcons went into Temple off a 49-25 whipping at Ohio the previous Saturday.
Against Temple, two Bowling Green starters were unable to play before the game even began and four more regulars were lost during the course of play.
Then, heading into the final 15 minutes of action, the Falcons trailed 28-14 after giving up two big pass plays for scores and allowing another touchdown because of a mishandled snap on a punt.
However, the Falcons did not give up.
The offense generated two scoring drives and the defense held when needed, giving the offense the ball back twice in the final five minutes of the game.
It all came down to a 2-point conversion pass with no time left on the clock. Temple’s Marquise Liverpool broke up the pass intended for Kamar Jorden on a slant pattern and the Owls held on for the win.
Still, Bowling Green can take a lot of positives from this game, after giving the team picked to win the Mid-American Conference East everything it wanted on its home field.
“There are no moral victories. But to say you’re proud of your football team, I certainly am,” Clawson said. “We got after them this week. We really challenged them. Whenever you do that as a coach, you always run the risk of losing them ... The way they came today and answered the bell ... Their effort, their heart and their play in the fourth quarter ... I’m probably prouder of them now than any game we’ve had this year and going back to last year.
“If that’s the type of effort we can play with here and we can establish and make that our standard, we’re going to win a lot of games,” he continued. “But it can’t be here one week and gone the next. I think that’s our challenge now, to give this type of effort every week, clean up the execution, and that’s how you become a good program and a good football team.”
The Falcons jumped to an early lead on Jovan Leacock’s 49-yard interception return for a score. The PAT failed.
The Owls came back with two passing touchdowns — one covering 80 yards and the other 46 yards to take a 14-6 lead into the half.
Bowling Green evened the score with 10:01 left in the third quarter when Willie Geter capped an eight-play, 66-yard drive with a 12-yard touchdown run. Jorden’s reception on the two-point conversion made it 14-14. The Owls committed two 15-yard penalties on the drive.
The game turned on Quinten White’s fumble recovery late in the third quarter that put Temple up 21-14. BG Bryan Wright mishandled a low snap and the ball bounded toward the end zone. Wright tried to pick it up at the 5-yard-line but was tackled and the ball went into the end zone, where it was recovered by White.
Then with three seconds remaining in the third quarter, Bernard Pierce capped an eight-play 71-yard drive with a 6-yard run to increase Temple’s lead to 28-14.
“The bottom line is, we really handed them 21 points,” Clawson said.
Bowling Green got back to within one TD with 6:04 left in the game when Jordan Hopgood scored on a 1-yard run to cap a 17-play, 80-yard drive which took 6:07 off the clock.
The Falcons then caught a break when the Owls Michael Campbell fumbled the ball after a 5-yard catch, and Bowling Green’s Calvin Marshall recovered at the Owls 40. But the Falcons couldn’t get a first down, and Temple took over.
BG’s defense held again, and the Falcons got the ball back with 1:47 remaining at its own 31-yard line.
Facing a fourth-and-16 from Temple’s 37-yard line in the waning seconds, Jorden went up in traffic to pull down Schilz’s desperation pass at the 4-yard line.Schilz then stopped the clock by spiking the ball before finding Calvin Wiley for the TD. However, the try for the win in regulation failed.
“Part of my thought was, we were not going to win a red zone contest with Temple,” Clawson said about going for two points. “If it came down to running the football and kicking field goals. I did not feel like that was a back-and-forth battle that we were going to win.
“The play call was one we had used earlier. It’s just a concept route that if we get Kamar isolated, we take a shot,” Clawson continued. “We felt good about it. We felt like we had a good play ready to roll.”
BG is 1-6 overall and 0-3 in the MAC heading into this Saturday’s Family Weekend game against Kent State with kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Temple travels to Buffalo for a noon kickoff.
NOTES:
Bowling Green’s front-line players took a major hit during Saturday’s game at Temple.
“The list gets longer. It is what it is. For me to sit here to complain about it or go ‘woe is me’, that’s not what we are about,” BG head coach Dave Clawson said. “It has to be the next man up.
“We cannot allow that to be an excuse for how we play ... That can’t be part of our mentality as a program.”
BG’s Blaec Walker, the starting left tackle, and receiver/kick returner Tyrone Pronty were not available at the start of the game. Walker is out for the season with a knee injury and Pronty is battling through an ankle injury.
Then during the 28-27 loss to the Owls, the Falcons lost four more regulars — running back Willie Geter (ankle), fullback Zach Akenberger (leg), wide receiver/kick returner Eugene Cooper (ankle) and cornerback Cameron Truss (ankle).
Akenberger, a Bowling Green High School graduate, was taken off the field with an air-cast on his leg and is probably out for the season.
Tyler Donahue moved from right tackle to Walker’s spot and Jordon Roussos got the start at right tackle, after beginning the season as a defensive tackle.
“I don’t know if he even knows half of our offense,” Clawson said about Roussos. “The one thing that Jordon does is that he goes out there and plays hard and he goes to the whistle.
“I thought he played with great effort and great passion.”
With Pronty and Cooper both out, Adrian Hodges got more work, making six receptions for 38 yards and redshirt freshman tight end Alex Bayer had a career-high five receptions for 77 yards.
“It was really encouraging to see him make plays,” Clawson said about Bayer.
Jake Thompson, a redshirt freshman, stepped in for Akenberger and made a good block to help Jordan Hopgood get in the end zone in the fourth quarter.
Hopgood helped fill void at tailback.
Adrien Spencer took over for Truss at corner.
RETURNS: BG’s Jovan Leacock returned an interception 49-yards for a touchdown in the first quarter Saturday.
It was the fourth defensive touchdown for the Falcons this season, the most defensive scores in a season in school history. The previous-high were three defensive scores by the 1985 team.
JORDEN: BG’s Kamar Jorden, the nation’s leading receiver had a game-high 12 catches for 143 yards, including a huge 33-yard leaping catch late in the fourth quarter to help set up the Falcons’ final touchdown.
SCHILZ: Matt Schilz played well for the Falcons, hitting 30-of-51 passes for 287 yards and a TD.
RUSHING: BG finished with only 52 rushing yards, mainly because of two sacks and a 30-yard loss on the mishandled punt snap in the third quarter.
On plays from scrimmage, Geter and Hopgood combined for 27 carries for 76 yards in the game.
KICKING WOES: BG missed an extra-point and a field goal and gave up a touchdown when Bryan Wright mishandled a punt snap in the third quarter.
“We work on that in practice, to kick it out of the back of the end zone ... Take the safety and live for another day,” Clawson said about the fumbled snap. “He felt he could shovel it back there.”
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