Doug Martin wants his players to forget the frustration of a late-fourth-quarter collapse that led to Kent State losing a 36-35 heartbreaker to Bowling Green on Saturday.
To avoid suffering an extended hangover after blowing a 12-point lead to a division rival in the final five minutes, the Golden Flashes’ head coach believes the players need to move on.
Martin and his coaching staff have taken a different track.
Instead of trying to forget, they tried to learn from their mistakes by asking themselves what they could do differently to avoid future meltdowns.
One of the results of the soul searching was to avoid outsmarting themselves.
“It’s really easy when you are playing a passing team to come up with all sorts of grand schemes,” said Martin. “This will stop that, and that will stop this. Sometimes you can outsmart yourself. If we are guilty of anything, that’s an area as we look back ... we probably asked them to do a little too much back there.”
“Back there” means the Flashes’ secondary — a group that allowed Bowling Green wide receiver Freddie Barnes 22 catches for 278 yards and three touchdowns.
Falcons head coach Dave Clawson said he was surprised by Kent State’s coverages to start the game.
“In the first half, they came out with a little bit of man, but they were trying to press him and be physical,” said Clawson. “They were playing what I would call some “three-cloud,” where they were trying to squat him and roll a safety over top of him.”
It was scheme the Falcons had not seen KSU use on film.
In the second half, Kent State “made a lot of adjustments,” according to Clawson. “They played a lot of cover-two in the second half, and we really had to start moving (Barnes) around to get him the football.”
With all of the changes along the way, the Flashes already thin defensive backfield seemed to get more and more unsure of itself.
According to Martin, always-stead starting free safety Brian Lainhart played “probably his worst game. He didn’t tackle well, and he laid back on a couple of things where he should have been up helping on a corner.”
That didn’t help. The changes also led to arguably the best cornerback on the team, Josh Pleasant, playing inside more than usual on the Falcons’ slot receiver, while sophomore walk-on Norman Wolfe often drew the difficult assignment against Barnes.
Martin said all the cornerbacks and safeties ended up giving the Falcons’ wide receivers too much of a cushion.
“Is that indecision on their parts? Is that just at the end of the game not getting up and competing the way you are supposed to?,” Martin asked. “Probably a little of both. We are going to simplify things and give those guys the ability to be more aggressive.”
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HELP ON THE WAY — Martin admitted the cornerback position is a bit thin right now.
Kirk Belgrave could have been the answer against Barnes, but he flunked out of school before the start of the season.
Now the Flashes are considering moving one-time cornerback Sam Kirkland from wide receiver back to the corner.
“We are still talking with our defensive staff about that,” said Martin. “If we did it, we would probably swing him back-and-forth because he has helped us a great deal on offense. He gives us a physical wide receiver we need.”
Kirkland opened Saturday’s game by taking a reverse 86 yards for a touchdown.
Another option is sophomore Chris Gilbert, who played wide receiver as a freshman before moving to cornerback this season. According to Martin, Gilbert is close to being ready to contribute.
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MORE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES — Martin’s soul searching regarding the decision making of KSU’s coaching staff has also led him to believe the Flashes need to be more aggressive on offense in the future.
“From an offensive standpoint, it’s really different calling a game when you have a freshman quarterback,” said Martin. “I don’t want to put the whole game in Spencer (Keith’s) hands at this point. I don’t think it is fair to him and don’t think it is the best thing for our football team.
“At the end of the game, he had a slant route that he just missed. It was open. He just missed it. But on the next play, I could have maybe gone to an empty set, spread the field and see if he could make something happen.”
Instead, Martin played it conservative, and called for a screen pass with the idea of punting the football and turning the game over to the defense.
Martin admitted he should have “turned (Keith) loose and let him throw the football” on third down.
“He’s had enough under his belt now that we don’t need to consider him a freshman anymore,” Martin continued. “We can go play, and I can make calls and be a little more aggressive. Looking back, I’d probably like to be a little more aggressive offensively.”
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David Carducci can be contacted at dcarducci@recordpub.com