Week 6: Bowling Green
It's homecoming in Akron! No better time to turn things around.
In the blink of an eye, we are at the mid-point of Akron’s 2024 football season. They return home for just the second time this season to face the 1-3 Bowling Green Falcons, who will play their first MAC game on Saturday. The Zips (1-4, 0-1 MAC) have to start winning games, starting this week, if they want any shot at the postseason. No, I did not think the team would go bowling this year, but the point still stands—there is still very much something to play for.
The Zips and Falcons have had an interesting relationship the last five years. Bowling Green hired head coach Scot Loeffler during the same cycle Akron hired Tom Arth. Loeffler, a Barberton native, is 21-38 at BG. He took over a once proud program destroyed by the hiring of Mike Jinks and took his time building it back into a respectable MAC program. He truly hit the reset button, so much so that he was on the losing end of Arth’s only 2 FBS wins as head coach at Akron. Now, BG is beating Toledo with some regularity and has gone to two straight bowl games.
After two straight wins over BG in 2020 and 2021, Akron’s MAC opener came against the Falcons in 2022. BG took an early lead in that one but Akron kept up. Unforced errors by the Zips allowed the Falcons to leave Akron with a 1-0 MAC record. That was the first of many close MAC losses under Joe Moorhead, and not much has changed since.
BGSU leads the all-time series over Akron 20-10.
Looking at the Falcons
Bowling Green has become a trendy MAC Champion pick in the early parts of this season. Despite being 1-3, they have contained opposing offenses while putting up plenty of points of their own, they just haven’t been able to finish in the end. They scored a TD on the opening kick in a blowout win over 0-5 Fordham to open the campaign. Since then, close losses by 7 and 6 points to Penn State and Texas A&M respectively had them confident heading into their nonconference finale at home against Old Dominion. However, BG’s inability to finish drives spoiled an overall strong performance as the Monarchs left Doyt Perry Stadium with their first win of the season. BG was an 11.5-point favorite and outgained ODU by 65 yards, had 7 more first downs, and 15 more minutes of possession but came up short after losing the turnover battle just 1-0.
Once again, TE Harold Fannin nearly won the game single-handedly. He has proven to be Bowling Green’s only consistently reliable target in the passing game, and that’s been no issue for them. The Canton, OH native already has 541 receiving yards on the season, including 192 against Old Dominion last week.
Throwing to Harold Fannin on Saturday will be Connor Bazelak. Over half of Bazelak’s passing yards and 75% of his touchdown passes have been to Fannin in the early parts of this season. You don’t see usage levels like that in MAC passing games too often. While one could see that and think beating the Falcons is as easy as shutting down Fannin, I’d laugh in their face merely at the thought of slowing down that connection. Akron could certainly contain Fannin in a bend-don’t-break fashion, but he will get plenty of targets and plenty of opportunities on Saturday.
Nobody else really stands out from a skill position standpoint for the Falcons. Terion Stewart is certainly one of the better MAC running backs and he could be licking his chops getting to face a weaker run-stopping defensive front against Akron. He got off to a fast start against Fordham, who has proven to be a really bad FCS team. Since then, he’s had 33 carries for just 109 yards and a touchdown. Even with a one-dimensional offense, QB Connor Bazelak has been able to move the offense down the field with Fannin as his best weapon. I’d look for BG to get a little stubborn with the run early against Akron. If they are able to establish Stewart and/or Jaison Patterson early on, Akron will be staring down the barrel of another 1-5 start to the season. On the other hand, containing the run could lead to more opportunities to rush the quarterback and hopefully bump up the QB hurry and sack numbers on the season. Akron got to Ohio QB Parker Navarro quite a few times but was unable to finish most of the time. Bazelak is not as mobile so if they can get into the backfield, they will not have to worry about as much improvisation.
Bowling Green has had a lot of success getting to the quarterback, as they’ve sacked their FBS counterparts 7 times already. That excludes the 5 they got against Fordham. Linebackers Charles Rosser and Joseph Sipp have recorded 5.5 between the two of them. Against ODU, they combined for 14 tackles and 1.5 of the 4 sacks recorded on the day by the Falcons. These numbers scare me to death. Ben Finley’s confidence is shaky right now and the last thing the Akron offense needs is to get him hit more.
Looking at the Zips
In each of Akron’s first five games, a different player or position group has stepped up to play their best game of the season, but the team as a whole has not been able to piece everything together to play an entire game of cohesive, complimentary football. That includes the Colgate game. I can’t give too much credit when you get yourself down 17-0 in the first quarter. Either way, that was the best performance overall, and Ohio last week was the second best.
Is the team as a whole progressing this year? It’s hard to say. I called out the receivers after the first two weeks, and they have stepped up to perform admirably. Adrian Norton is the top playmaker on the roster right now. No second receiver has stepped up or had the opportunity. Tight end Jake Newell is target #2 at this point, and he is quickly climbing up the rankings as one of my favorite Zips.
After a career day against Colgate, quarterback Ben Finley has really struggled the last two games. He’s made some throws and made some plays here and there, but he has been too impatient in the pocket and thrown too many bad interceptions. Finley has thrown at least one interception in every game for Akron. Against Ohio, Akron’s offensive line finally showed it can pass block, to an extent. Finley still looked uneasy and less than confident, missing far too many throws. You could see head coach Joe Moorhead visibly frustrated with some of the decision making at Ohio. Akron led twice and trailed by no more than 6 points all game long until a few minutes into the 4th quarter. I won’t go as far as to say Finley cost Akron that game, but he had plenty of opportunities to go out and win it.
I want to give the defense credit for a nice performance at Ohio, but I’d like to see them take it a step forward against BG this week. If they have a repeat performance against BG as they had against Ohio, Akron will be in good shape. They forced a couple of turnovers and gave the offense some chances. But I want to see some real havoc. Strip-sacks, a pick-6, more TFLs. Those are things that go a long way toward winning games. I want to see them stuff the run and finish tackles. BG RB Terion Stewart was held to 67 yards against Old Dominion, forcing BG to air it out. Bazelak is much like Finley. A veteran P5 QB who has high highs and low lows. He’s got limited weapons, with only one pass catcher eclipsing 20 total catches on the season. If Akron shuts down the run game and contains Fannin under 150 yards, they will have a chance to win. But that is a tall ask, so Akron will need to score points to keep up.
What’s it all mean?
Bowling Green has won so many games they “aren’t supposed to” under Loeffler that I’ve lost count. Akron’s been inches away from numerous MAC wins over the last couple of seasons, grasping defeat from the jaws of victory. Bowling Green is a talented program that Loeffler has built from the ground up. They will have the talent edge over Akron. Despite their inability to win close games in 2024, they have shown they can dominate their lesser competition over the last two years. While Akron may be deeper at some positions than BG, the Falcons and their coaching staff have shown they just know how to win ballgames. Akron got on the board first against Ohio, but they are still looking for their first 7-0 lead of the season. Bowling Green got behind early against Old Dominion but they were not phased and those teams traded the lead all day long until the very end. Collegefootballdata.com gave the Falcons a postgame win expectancy of 64% in their loss last week, meaning with the same box score, BG wins games like that more often than they lose.
To say the Falcons are hungry coming into Akron is an understatement. They are starving for a win, and still have a trip to Detroit in their sights. I’d argue BG is the most dangerous team for anyone in the MAC to play right now. Throw in that Scot Loeffler is a local guy and is rumored to have wanted the Akron job in the past, and we could potentially see a buzzsaw enter from Infocision Stadium’s southeast corner tunnel on Saturday. I don’t need to say it, but Akron must be well-prepared and execute if they want any hope of winning this game. It will all start with the offense and quarterback giving them a chance. I’d be surprised to see the defense flat-out lay an egg, but if the offense can’t get some points on the board, the season will go in the toilet quickly. Last year, a pissed off 1-4, 0-1 MAC NIU team came into Akron needing a win to keep their bowl hopes alive, and they made Akron look foolish in a 55-14 beatdown. You may recall RB Antario Brown using only 13 carries to rack up 280 yards and 4 TDs of 46+ yards. I expect Bowling Green to bring that same energy on Saturday. This is a huge moment for Akron’s players and coaching staff to step up to show the MAC they aren’t a pushover anymore.
The spread is hovering around Bowling Green -15. According to ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s SP+ model, Bowling Green will win 32-19.
Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30pm EST on Saturday October 5. Streaming available on ESPN+.
The weather is looking flawless as of right now, with a high of 72 and likely no rain. It’s going to be a great day on campus, hopefully with a big MAC win to add an exclamation mark!
The Akron Alumni Association will host an Oktoberfest themed tailgate as well as other events all weekend. Men’s basketball is also holding an open practice Saturday at Noon in the newly constructed Wentz Financial Player Development Center.