I've been hoping for an NIU/Bowling Green rematch for a couple reasons. The first one is obviously revenge, but the second one is to see how many plays the two teams will run.

As you know, NIU likes to play fast. When they're moving the chains, they're going high tempo.

In 12 games, NIU has run 895 plays. That's 74.5 plays per game.

NIU ran 76.6 plays per game last year, so despite taking a step back on offense they're playing almost as fast as last year.

Compare that to BG. In 12 games, BG has run 953 plays, or about 79.4 plays per game.

Is 5 plays per game some astronomical difference? No, not really, but BGSU running 5 more plays per game when you consider NIU plays pretty damn fast in their own right is a pretty sizeable difference.

What's my point? Well there's a few.

#1 This is going to be a long, high possesion game. Having watched Bowling Green a few times this year, their games take forever. That's only going to increase with the fact NIU likes to play fast too. Prepare yourself for a 4 hour game. It also means that, don't panic if it goes bad early like it usually does with NIU in Detroit. NIU is going to have plenty of chances/drives to get back into the game, as will Bowling Green if it's the other way around.

Last week, NIU had 13 drives and WMU had 12. By comparison, I went and looked at a couple of Bowling Green's shootouts earlier this year. In the UMASS game, Bowling Green had 19 drives and UMASS had 19. In the Indiana game, both teams had 15 drives. That's 38 and 30 drives compared to just 25 in the NIU/WMU game last week. That is a HUGE difference.

#2 When teams are going that fast, things can snowball pretty easily on both sides. If Bowling Green goes down and scores in 90 seconds and NIU goes three and out, you send their offense back on the field with a ton of momentum. Same could be said about the NIU offense and BG defense. I think third down is going to key, even more so than usual. NIU can't hang the defense out to dry like they've done a few times this year.

As fast as they play, I really don't think their offense is that good. Their QB kinda sucks, and they've been playing the backup some lately.

By comparsion:
Knapke: 2654 yards, 57% completion, 6.27 YPA, 12 TD, 10 INT
Callaway: 140 yards, 47%, 6.67 YPA, 1 TD, 0 INT

Hare: 1879 yards, 60% completion, 7.52 YPA, 15 TD, 1 INT
Maddie: 227 yards, 61% completion, 6.88 YPA, 0 TD, 1 INT

Neither of their QBs run much, but they do have a pretty solid running game. 2167 yards, 4.6 YPC, 27 TDs. They have 3 backs with 100+ carries.

By comparison, NIU has run for 2954 yards at 5 a carry and 31 TDs.

#3 We know Babers likes to coach like he's playing a video game when he's an underdog. He did it against NIU as EIU's coach, and I see no reson why he won't again Friday.

Bowling Green: 54th in points for (30.8)/101st in points against (32.5)
NIU: 55th in points for (30.6)/45th in points again (24.2).

What do we also know about Babers? He really doesn't like to coach anything but offense. His defenses always suck, they take a lot of penalties (part of that is the high possesions number), and look for NIU to make a play in special teams.

Go Huskies.

(12-03-2014 10:45 AM)7 Wrote:  #1 This is going to be a long, high possesion game. Having watched Bowling Green a few times this year, their games take forever. That's only going to increase with the fact NIU likes to play fast too. Prepare yourself for a 4 hour game. It also means that, don't panic if it goes back early. NIU is going to have plenty of chances/drives to get back into the game, as will Bowling Green if it's the other way around.

Good thing, I'll get my moneys worth coming all the way from Carbondale.

Let's try and counter BG's offense by keeping our defense off the field. Eat up the clock on offense. Regardless of how we feel about their QB's, we still have to respect their offense. Fortunately, our defense has been playing well. Hold onto the ball, let Stingley and JoelB get their carries, and have Hare continue his read option success.

A victory would be great, but it will not make up for last year's debacle which cost us and the conference major $$$$.

(12-03-2014 11:03 AM)beachboy Wrote:  Let's try and counter BG's offense by keeping our defense off the field. Eat up the clock on offense. Regardless of how we feel about their QB's, we still have to respect their offense. Fortunately, our defense has been playing well. Hold onto the ball, let Stingley and JoelB get their carries, and have Hare continue his read option success.

NIU isn't going to randomly stop playing fast for a game after doing it for 4 years now, and it would be dumb to do so.

(12-03-2014 11:08 AM)RitzHuskie Wrote:  A victory would be great, but it will not make up for last year's debacle which cost us and the conference major $$$$.

Unless of course Boise loses....

Both team's, as would be expected, rank near the bottom of the MAC in TOP. Will be interesting to see which offense is on the field longer on Friday.

Defense needs to stop them on third down. If BG is 10 for 15 on third down put a L in the NIU column.

The only way I could see us slowing down the offense is if we get a big lead.

The View from the BG Side

Pretty good preview. I would suggest reading it.

Damn near better than anything Huskiewire has put out.

(12-04-2014 02:39 PM)BleedsHuskieRed Wrote:  Damn near better than anything Huskiewire has put out.

Gogola had a really nice article about Loos in the Star today.

Wow that Frank can write. Not sure what his future holds but I hope he sticks to coveting the huskies!

http://m.northernstar.info/mobile_adv/sports/