Wolverines elusive for Falcons

Michigan's Denard Robinson is forced out of bounds by Bowling Green's Ryland Ward in the first quarter. Robinson was hurt on the play and did not return, but he still had 129 yards rushing. Tate Forcier escapes the grasp of Bowling Green's Chris Jones. The Wolverines piled up 721 yards of offense. THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON Enlarge | Photo Reprints

ANN ARBOR - Bowling Green State Universit's 65-21 loss to Michigan Saturday was embarrassing and ugly, without question.

But the most disappointing part of the Falcons' effort at Michigan Stadium was that the BG defense allowed 721 yards of total offense, including a whopping 466 yards rushing.

The total offense was one yard shy of the single-game best by a FBS team this season. Oklahoma State hung 722 yards on Tulsa the week after Tulsa beat the Falcons. The rushing yardage also was the second-best single-game total by a FBS team entering play this weekend.

BG coach Dave Clawson said there was a simple explanation for the poor performance by his defense.

PHOTO GALLERY: COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Bowling Green State University at University of Michigan, Sept. 25, 2010.

"Missed tackles - that's the game," he said. "I really believe that, if we tackle better, maybe it's 14-14 at the half and we start with the ball.

"The amount of big plays we gave up because of missed tackles, you can't beat anybody that way."

Michigan finished with 21 plays that gained at least 10 yards - and had at least one in all 11 drives - and averaged 8.8 yards per play. The Wolverines scored on nine of those 11 possessions.

"It's disappointing to me when we make a hit in the backfield or after one or two yards, and they become 12, 15, 30-yard plays," Clawson said. "We need to be better than that.

"We had guys dropping a shoulder and ducking their heads as if they were tackling JV football players. Certainly Michigan has tremendous skill. But we made them look better - we looked like a very poor fundamental team."

Michigan's success came against a team that had seven freshmen, including true freshmen Jerry "Booboo" Gates and Aaron Foster, play a significant number of plays on defense.

"It was baptism by fire," Clawson said. "A lot of the guys who missed tackles were freshmen, but they need to learn and grow from it.

"Their way of tackling isn't working. They need to do it our way."

BG's "way" of tackling often involved trying for strips instead of stops, which backfired as the Falcons forced only one fumble.

"Going in and trying to strip the ball [is done by] the second or third guy in, not the first," Clawson said. "The athletes they have make you pay dearly for that.

"Of the yards they had rushing, a third of that came after a missed tackle - if not more."

Senior linebacker Eugene "Champ" Fells said the tackling problems weren't limited to the freshmen.

"It was across the board," Fells said. "I missed a couple of tackles, and some of the other older guys missed tackles.

"I don't think our youth is an excuse. From the beginning of the year I thought we had a good defense, and I still think we can have a good year if we can get some things cleaned up."

Fells thought some of the problems for the defense may have come because the team played in front of 109,933 fans, the largest crowd BG has ever seen.

"When you go so hard, and you try to play with unbelievable effort, sometimes you lose technique," he said. "You're trying to make a big play instead of setting your feet and making a tackle."

Clawson disagreed, saying, "These guys have played in other settings. I think if you would have eliminated the 109,000 fans, they still would have made us miss."

The good news - if there is such a thing following a 44-point loss, the largest the Falcons have absorbed since the 56-point setback to Tulsa in the 2008 GMAC Bowl - is that it doesn't impair BG's chances in Mid-American Conference play, which begins Saturday at home against Buffalo.

"We need to refocus on Buffalo because right now we're undefeated in the MAC," Clawson said. "Our primary goal every year is to play for and win the MAC Championship, and this game has no impact on that.

"But to say, 'Let's move on?' There's some things we did so poorly that, if we do them against anybody in the MAC, we'll be in trouble too."

Still, it was easy to see the anger and frustration on the faces of all the orange-clad Falcons.

"This hurts," Fells admitted. "We can't forget, but we need to use it as fuel. We can't go out next week and play like we did [here]. You can't win a college football game playing like we did.

"My message would be, 'Let's go out and practice every day like it's a game. Let's go out with focus and unbelievable effort every day."

Contact John Wagner at:

jwagner@theblade.com

or 419-724-6481.