The Sports Xchange
NCAAF Team Report – Buffalo – INSIDE SLANT
The season is spinning out of control for the Buffalo Bulls, with each loss looking worse than the last. Buffalo hasn’t played good enough to win on the road in years, especially at Northern Illinois but no one expected this outcome: Huskies 45, Bulls 3.
Remember all the talk after the loss at Georgia about Buffalo being good enough to win the Mid-American Conference? All is forgotten after the Bulls fell to 1-5 overall and 0-3 in league play. No need to make plans for the MAC Championship Game in Detroit. Those two slots belong to Ohio University and Northern Illinois until further notice.
Just glance at the schedule and predict and next Buffalo win? Pittsburgh? Toledo? Miami (Ohio)? Western Michigan? Those are the next four games, all at home, and chances are Buffalo won’t be favored in any of them.
“I’m not numb at all,” Buffalo coach Jeff Quinn told The Buffalo News. “I’m extremely angry. I’m aggravated. … That’s nowhere near the kind of football I expected out of our team.”
Northern Illinois dominated at the line of scrimmage saying in so many words, ‘We’re running the ball down your throat. We dare you to do the same.'”
The Huskies committed to stopping the Bulls, who were playing without leading rusher Bo Oliver, on the ground and did it, both through play in the trenches and with the safeties pushing into the box. That forced Buffalo to the air something it simply cannot do. Northern Illinois 21-point second quarter erased all doubt.
Northern Illinois quarterback Jordan Lynch scored two touchdowns early and passed for two more late while totaling 232 yards through the air and 129 on the ground. The Huskies finished with 219 yards rushing.
The Huskies (6-1, 3-0) suffocated Buffalo’s ground game — ensuring the Bulls would remain winless on the road against West Division opponents and winless on the road against anybody in more than two years. Buffalo had just 74 yards rushing.
“They were very determined to stop the run,” Buffalo center Trevor Sales told The Buffalo News. “I’m not going to say we got out-physicaled because I don’t believe in that because we’re a very tough offensive line across the board. One thing I will say schematically, they definitely beat us in some areas and that’s on us as an offensive line.”
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NCAAF Team Report – Buffalo – NOTES, QUOTES
WHAT’S AHEAD: Buffalo returns home after three consecutive weeks on the road to face Pittsburgh, whose play this season has been just as confusing as the Bulls.
–Captains for Buffalo were Alex Zordich, Gokhan Ozkan, Colby Way and Jake Stockman.
–Buffalo was held without a touchdown for the first time in 10 games. Devin Campbell fumbled at the Northern Illinois 1 on the game’s final play.
–The Bulls recovered an opponent’s fumble for the first time this season on Northern Illinois’ final possession
KEEP AN EYE ON: Jeff Quinn has to be on the hot seat. Buffalo won 13 games in the two previous seasons before Quinn arrived and Turner Gill didn’t leave the cupboard bare when he departed for Kansas. A telltale sign that a coaching change may be in the cards is when teams get blown out by league opponents. Another is when a coach is working for a first-year AD (Danny White), who didn’t hire him.
LOOKING GOOD: Devon Hughes led all Buffalo wideouts with nine receptions for 105 yards after catching just eight passes for 89 yards in the previous four games. Coming in, there was a 17-catch separation between junior Alex Neutz and the next wideout on the list: Hughes.
STILL NEEDS WORK: Not many happy feelings from this one. The special teams gave up a big gain on a fake punt and the turnover count favored Northern Illinois, 3-1. The Huskies won the line of scrimmage and, with strong safety support, allowed just 74 yards to the nation’s 23rd-ranked rushing team with not a single gain longer than 16.
QUOTE TO NOTE: “We saw coming in that he’s got great feet, he’s a fast quarterback, he doesn’t go down easy. One of our big emphasis this week was on just bringing him down, just playing him. We based our defense around him. We just struggled bringing him down.” — Buffalo DE Colby Way.
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NCAAF Team Report – Buffalo – STRATEGY AND PERSONNEL
PLAYER NOTES:
–QB Alex Zordich saw his streak of consecutive games with a TD pass snapped at five.
–LB Khalil Mack had a game-high 10 tackles and 1.5 tackles for losses
ROSTER REPORT
–The Bulls were again without starting tailback Bo Oliver, who sat out his third consecutive game with a knee injury.
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