Young Falcons try to press forward
Jinks: Players still putting forth effort
10/25/2016BOWLING GREEN — Time has not been on the side of the Bowling Green State University football team during the past few days.
The Falcons have had a couple of days to come to grips with their 40-26 loss to Miami, but first-year coach Mike Jinks said time has not helped heal the wounds inflicted by that defeat.
The loss dropped BG’s record to 1-7 overall, cementing a losing season and no bowl appearance for the Falcons for the first time since 2011. The team also dropped to the bottom of the Mid-American Conference standings with an 0-4 mark.
“It was a disappointing loss on a lot of levels,” Jinks said Monday. “We were hoping to put together two good performances, and we weren’t able to do that.
“That’s probably another example of our youth, learning how to win and learning how to do things the right way.”
Instead of building on a strong effort in a tight contest at Toledo, the Falcons backslid against the RedHawks. While their 446 yards of total offense was greater than Miami’s 429 yards, BG also had four turnovers to just one for the RedHawks.
The Falcons also allowed Miami to score all six times in the red zone, and BG’s 10 penalties seemed to occur at the most inopportune times.
“It’s tough, because you think you’ve got it turned around and you think you have it figured out [after the Toledo game],” Jinks said. “What it speaks to is the parity in this league.
“That’s a two-win team [in Miami], but they’ve been in every game they’ve played.”
Jinks confirmed there would not be personnel changes in the season’s final four games.
“We’ve played just about all the young kids we can,” he explained. “For those we haven’t played, it’s smarter to redshirt them.
“That’s the frustrating thing: We have a lot of kids out there and playing, and we’re still in games. We’re not playing the level of football that BG has played the past few years, but our kids are out there competing.
“That’s frustrating. I know everyone is sick of me saying, ‘They’re close, they’re close,’ but there’s evidence of that through the games. We’ve had a chance to win all of our conference games in the fourth quarter.”
Bowling Green’s next game is Nov. 1 at Northern Illinois. That gives the Falcons extra time to “tweak” their offensive and defensive schemes, but Jinks quickly shot that idea down.
“I think we’ve found our identity on the offensive side of the ball,” he said.
“Defensively, we have some questions that need to be answered. There are things we need to look at.”
One thing that pleases the Falcons coach is he thinks his team continues to play hard despite the adversity. One example from the Miami game was the fumble the defense caused despite trailing by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
“The thing we have going for us is that we have a great locker room,” Jinks said. “It was emotional in there Saturday, and it should have been.
“There’s a lot of guys who’ve put in a lot of time for Bowling Green State University, and now there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. They’ve got four more games, and that’s it. And that’s a tough thing.”
SCHEDULE BREAK: Jinks thinks the “break” in the schedule will be a positive.
“This 10-day break is coming at the right time,” he said. “We’ll have a chance to get healthy, get rejuvenated and go back at it.”
Jinks said the Falcons will have short practices with little hitting early this week to maximize the rest, then will return to a more normal daily practice schedule at the end of the week.
“[Those light days early in the week] will allow us to get some guys on the road and into schools recruiting,” Jinks said. “That will be a good thing for us moving forward.”
Contact John Wagner at: jwagner@theblade.com, 419-724-6481 or on Twitter @jwagnerblade.