By David Carducci
Record-Courier staff writer
Kent State authored the definitive text on how to give away a football game and possibly an entire season with a complete collapsing in the fourth quarter of a 36-35 loss to Bowling Green Saturday.
Add one more horrible volume to the collections of the already crowded bookshelves of the Golden Flashes fans in the the homecoming crowd of 15,211 at Dix Stadium.
They’ve seen and read all of this before.
Kent State tried to blame the loss on a fortunate bounce for Bowling Green after the Falcons muffed a punt in the closing minutes.
“The ball just didn’t bounce our way,” said KSU head coach Doug Martin.
In reality, losing came down to an opponent making all of the plays with the game on the line while Kent State players choked – again and again.
Let’s call this volume “The Anatomy of a Losing Football Team.”
Here’s how it reads:
Chapter 1: The Snap.
In need of just a decent punt after a stalled drive near the five-minute mark of the final quarter, KSU long-snapper Ryan Hidalgo short-hopped a snap to punter Matt Rinehart. The sloppy snap lead to a 27-yard punt, giving Bowling Green a short field inside KSU territory.
Chapter 2: The Whiffs.
The Falcons didn’t really need the short field, because on their very first play, BGSU wide receiver Freddie Barnes caught a short slant and weaved through the Flashes’ defense for a 45-yard touchdown. He really could have scored from anywhere thanks to missed tackles by KSU defensive backs Brian Lainhart, Danny Sadler, Dan Hartman and Josh Pleasant.
Barnes had his way with the Flashes secondary all day long, racking up unbelievable numbers as KSU’s cornerbacks backed off the line of scrimmage and gave the nation’s leader in pass receptions free reign to run wild through the secondary. Through six games, no Kent State receiver has managed the numbers Barnes totaled on Saturday alone — 22 catches for 278 yard.
Those are all school and Dix Stadium records, of course. The 22 grabs was just one shy of an NCAA record. And the 45-yard touchdown was the third touchdown connection of the afternoon with quarterback Tyler Sheehan, who set his own school marks by completing 44-of-63 passes for 505 yards.
“We were scratching and clawing to get off the field,” said Pleasant. “Bowling Green called some good plays, and we made a few mistakes here and there. But that’s going to happen.”
Back to those mistakes and “the Anatomy.”
Chapter 3: The Hurries.
Still leading by five points, 35-30, the Flashes had a chance to kill some critical seconds off the clock when they got the ball back with 4:29 to play — and after the Falcons gave them a gift by booting the kickoff out of bounds.
That is when true freshman quarterback Spencer Keith showed his inexperience.
After an almost mistake-free game, Keith showed signs of panic in the clutch, misfiring on two straight short passes. Both fell incomplete. But the first, while thrown to the wrong shoulder of fellow true freshman Tyshon Goode, should have been caught.
“I rushed them and made bad passes. I’m just going to forget them and move on to next week,” said Keith, who completed 10-of-18 passes for 141 yards, no interceptions, and a 3-yard touchdown pass to Dri Archer before those two final throws.
Complete just one of those last attempts and Bowling Green is forced to burn its final timeout. Complete both and the Falcons may not have found the time it needed to push through the game-winning score.
Chapter 4: One last whiff.
Bowling Green ended up needing all but five seconds of the 3:34 on the clock after KSU was forced to punt. The Falcons fumbled the kick, but the ball bounced right into the hands of Barnes.
A BGSU drive filled with more soft KSU coverage and more missed tackles set the stage for the game’s deciding play — a 9-yard quarterback draw by Sheehan.
And even on that final play, the Flashes found time for one last error.
Hartman had a clear shot on Sheehan at the 2-yard line and whiffed on the tackle. While Sheehan had momentum, Kent State has to expect its strong safety to win that battle just short of the goal line. Instead, Sheehan rolled into the end zone for the win.
Of course, the five final seconds still on the clock after the score were nowhere near enough for KSU to answer. There was only time for more pain and more frustration, and the realization that the Flashes (2-4, 1-1) blew an opportunity to head into the season’s second half in control of their destiny in the Mid-American Conference East Division race.
“I told the team, the biggest deal for us is to not let Bowling Green beat us twice,” said Martin. “We can’t go to Eastern Michigan and lose again because we are hung over from this game. We have to put this behind us and move on.”
It’s a nice idea, but Bowling Green didn’t beat Kent State all by itself. The Flashes played their part in this loss, too, and traditionally, Kent State teams don’t learn from these mistakes.
Kent State did some nice thing in the first 31⁄2 quarters to get its lead. Sam Kirkland took a reverse 86 yards for a touchdown on the Flashes’ very first play of the game, and running back Jacquise Terry ran for a pair of touchdowns. But when you collapse at the end, none of those good things matter.
•••
David Carducci can be reached at dcarducci@recordpub.com