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 MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Against teams in the Mid-American Conference, Bowling Green might be able to overcome a bad play or a mistake.
On the road against the No. 22 team in the nation, there’s no margin of error.
The Falcons found that out Saturday as West Virginia took advantage of every BG miscue, rolling to a 55-10 victory. The Falcons are now 3-2 overall while West Virginia improves to 4-1.
“Every time we made a mistake, they made us pay,” BG head coach Dave Clawson said about his team, which had five turnovers in the game, including three interceptions.
“This is a game when you play a team the caliber of West Virginia, you had better bring your ‘A’ game. You can’t turn the football over ... To give them a short field as often as we did, that’s how games like this get ugly. We didn’t play the best game we could play and we probably needed to do that to have a shot at beating these guys.”
The Mountaineers dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Sparked by a 291-yard rushing effort by Dustin Garrison, West Virginia finished with 643 yards in total offense. BG managed just 217 total yards while running 62 plays.
“They over-whelmed us a little bit up front,” Clawson said. “We missed too many tackles in the back end (of the defense) early.
“They won the battle in the trenches up front on offense and we didn’t do a good job of getting off blocks and disrupting them.”
Through its first four games of the season, the Mountaineers were a pass-first team with Geno Smith at quarterback. With the Falcons making a strong effort to take away the passing game, West Virginia turned to the run, and Garrison and his teammates responded. West Virginia rolled up 360 yards on the ground.
“To be honest with you, you are more worried about stopping the passing game,” Clawson said. “Their quarterback is excellent and they really stretch you across the field ... So we spread out a little bit and we were hoping we could hold up against the run game and we obviously didn’t do that.
“We wanted to force them to run the football. We felt good about our scheme,’’ Clawson added. “When everything gets three or four yards into the secondary, you are battling up hill.”
And when they did decide to throw the ball, the Mountaineers were also effective with 283 yards in the air. Smith was 18-of-30 for 238 yards and three touchdowns.
“They have a very good offensive scheme and Geno knows what he’s doing with it,’’ Clawson said. “When they caught us in blitz situations they isolated (Tavron) Austin and we couldn’t cover him. When we doubled, they ran the football.”
The Falcons fumbled the opening kickoff, but BG’s defense held West Virginia to a field goal.
BG came right back as Jerry ‘BooBoo’ Gates returned the ensuing kickoff 77 yards to set up an 18-yard scoring pass from Matt Schilz to Ray Hutson.
BG’s defense then held and forced a punt, which traveled only 14 yards, giving BG possession at its own 45-yard line. The Falcons had a first-and-goal from the 9-yard line, but had to settle for a 21-yard field goal from Stephen Stein. The field goal made it 10-3 with 7:47 left in the first quarter. West Virginia then took over on both offense and defense, and BG never scored again.
Garrison, who came into the game with 65 yards on just 13 carries, nearly duplicated West Virginia’s four-game team rushing total of 306 yards. He helped West Virginia’s offense score on six of its first eight offensive possessions of the first half to give the Mountaineers a 38-10 lead at the break.
“The holes were there,” Garrison said. “The linemen were doing their jobs and making holes. Most of the yards that I got came from cutting off blocks that the fullbacks made.
“I’m seeing the holes a lot faster and hitting them a lot faster. I’m coming off blocks and running defenders into blocks, things like that. It reminds me of high school.”
The Mountaineers scored on their opening possession of the second half and later tacked on another field goal. West Virginia’s final TD came with 7:52 remaining in the game.
“We did not get off blocks on D-line and we did not tackle well in the second ,and third levels and that’s a credit to West Virginia,” Clawson said.
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