Here are some quotes from both BG and Kent State following the Falcons' 31-24 loss to the Golden Flashes at the Doyt Saturday ...
- “[Dri Archer] was the ‘X’ factor in this game,” Bowling Green coach Dave Clawson said. “We made big plays through design, but they got big plays just through the normal course of their offense. That’s what having a weapon like that will do. He’s the real deal. He’s a great player.”
Archer finished with 241 yards rushing on 17 carries and caught one pass for 13 yards. Of his 18 touches, he gained at least 10 yards on seven of them (38.9 percent), including the touchdown runs of 79 and 74 yards.
- “I just didn’t want to go down,” Archer said about his second touchdown run, where he seemed to be tackled near midfield, then escaped to finish a 74-yard run.
- When Archer was asked about shouldering a larger load because of the injury to Trayion Durham, he said, “Coach [Darrell Hazell]told me all week I’d have to be ready to do more. I was ready.”
- “That was the one guy that we talked about and [said we] had to contain,” Bowling Green linebacker Paul Swan said of Archer. “I felt we contained Durham, but we definitely did not contain Archer, and that killed us. When we had an opportunity to make a play on him, we had to make the play. We missed too many tackles.”
- Kent State quarterback Spencer Keith was a factor running the ball, carrying it 12 times for a net of 39 yards. “If you keep chasing Archer and chasing Archer, you could bleed to death giving up six or seven yards to Keith,” Clawson said. “If you’re going to put two guys on Archer, that’s going to happen.”
- “Almost every challenge we’ve given to our defense this year, they have responded to,” Clawson said. “Whether it’s playing [Miami’s] Zac Dysert or [Eastern Michigan’s] Bronson Hill or [Ohio’s] Tyler Tettleton … But we certainly didn’t bottle [Archer] up the way we needed to.”
- “We’re not happy with the result, but in terms of the effort our players gave I can’t be more happy with our football team,” Clawson said. “To get to this point in the season and play a game of this magnitude, to come up short hurts. Our guys have invested a lot in this season, and they’re great kids. This hurts a lot.”
- Bowling Green quarterback Matt Schilz was asked about the play of receiver Shaun Joplin, who caught three passes for 35 in the final drive. All three catches resulted in first downs, and two came on third-down plays. “Shaun was just getting open,” Schilz said. “He’s a great receiver, and he’s the reason we got down the field. He made some great catches. That just shows how talented he is and how athletic he is.”
- Clawson was asked what Kent State did to slow down the BG running game. “They do it a different way than we do it –- they do it by blitzing linebackers and stepping the safeties down,” Clawson said. “We want to run the ball, but after doing it for two and a half quarters, I told [offensive coordinator Warren] Ruggerio that we have to open it up and, if there are some things you like in the passing game, let’s go to them.”
- Schilz also was asked about the play of freshman wide receiver Chris Gallon, who caught 10 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns. “He has come a long way,” Schilz said. “It has been frustrating not to be able to get into a rhythm each week. But it’s something Chris and I have worked on a lot. He’s gotten so much better, and it finally paid off for us.”
- “We had to pick it up,” Gallon said of himself and the pass offense. “We had to work hard in practice, get into the film room and watch defense. We had to do whatever we could do to get people to stop saying that [we were struggling].”
- When asked about the interception in the end zone that effectively ended the game, Kent State's Luke Wollet said, "I sat back, read his eyes, and broke on it.'
- When Kent State coach Darrell Hazell was asked about the play of defensive lineman Roosevelt Nix, whose tip turned into an interception that set up the Golden Flashes' winning score, then later dropped back into coverage and knocked a pass down on fourth down to stop BG's next-to-last drive of the game. "Big Stop,'' Hazell said. "The A-players show up when they have to."
- Even though the game was tied at 24-24 late, Kent State quarterback Spencer Keith said, “I think our guys knew we were going to win.” That may not have been the Flashes' feeling in years past. "Before we definitely had some doubt," Keith said. "Just because of our past history."
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