Bowling Green Falcons v. Idaho Vandals (-7)
Making this my 3rd play of the season as I like the value in the home side here. We have Bowling Green coming off of a 2 win season where they were getting dominated in just about every contest. They were able to 1 win game on the road in a relative upset @CMU but basically got owned in every road game for the season. They don’t return too much to anticipate anything else from this team. They bring back a QB who had a 8:14 TD/INT ratio and looked lost most of the team by the speed of the game. I used to love betting on BGSU as they had an explosive offense with Sheehan and Barnes but this is not that squad and they will struggle until they find a legitimate replacement for Sheehan. They also lose their top running back and one of the best in school history. They do return their playmaker in Kamar Jordan but while his stats look gaudy, don’t forget they throw the ball 40 times a game so someone has to produce a few numbers. The offensive line returns 4 starters but they were horrible last season. I’m sure they will improve upon last seasons performance just through cohesion, but I don’t expect any miracles. Overall, I see this offense as being very poor and needing to have one hell of an offseason to get much better than last year after losing their best player in Willie Geter.
The defense was porous at best last year and any team with a glimmer of an offense was able to do whatever they want against them. The were a pretty experienced defense as well as this season they are going to lose 6 full time starters and will have a lot of gaps to fill. They will rely heavily on Dwayne Woods to do just about everything.
The special teams are a huge question mark as well as they lose their kicker/punter and have to replace both positions. They also lose their top kick returner so they have holes everywhere in special teams.
I do like Dave Clawson at coach as he has a very innovative offense but he just has too many holes to fill this season.
Overall, this is a horrible spot for a team trying to find confidence. You don’t want to have to play in a setting that is extremely unfamiliar to you when you are trying to improve upon a 2 win season. The inexperience of Bowling Green traveling to the dome in Idaho to open the season just smells like a rout to me.
Idaho does lose Nathan Enderle this season after being the starter there for 4 years. However, if you watched this team last year, they will be better off without him. His back up was Brian Reader and he was much more efficient running the offense when he had a chance. As a back up the 5:1 TD/INT ratio is very impressive and his completion percentage was higher. I don’t expect much of a drop off at this position, if any. They also bring in Ryan Bass from Arizona St. who is going to be a huge upgrade in their backfield. They also have a ton of depth back there as they return 3 players who carried the ball 40+ not counting Mr. Bass. They do lose a lot at receiver and will need to develop that position as the season goes along, but the secondary for BGSU has not presented much of a problem to most passing games in the last few years, so this is a good spot to develop. They also return 8 of their top 10 on the offensive line and this bodes well considering that BGSU only returns 2 on their defensive line. The stable of running backs should have plenty of holes to run through and I don’t expect Idaho to even have to go to the air to score in this one.
On defense the Vandals return 7 of their top 9 tacklers from last season and the only spot they wont be as strong as last season is on the defensive line. They did bring in a few experienced JUCO Dlineman to help with that area though. They return the same linebacker corps from the end of last season and only 1 safety out of their secondary. This defense improved a lot at the end of the season after getting predictably gashed by Nevada and Boise. I expect this unit to be strong and to give the inexperienced BGSU offense a lot of trouble.
Special teams wise, they return everyone except for their punt returner and look to be much better off than Bowling Green.
Overall, I give the Idaho offense an edge over the BGSU defense and the defense a huge edge over the Bowling Green offense. Special teams is very lopsided as well and the coaching I’d probably call a push. All in all, that’s an edge in about every major category that I will cap and think Idaho will punish BGSU. I do think by the end of the season that Clawson will have this team much improved, but not a good spot to open it up.
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