Messiah Burch Runs for 184 Yards as Buffalo Beats Bowling Green 31-24

For three quarters, Bowling Green did almost everything it wanted. The Falcons held the ball, moved the chains and matched Buffalo touchdown for touchdown. Then Messiah Burch broke one run for 73 yards, and the afternoon belonged to the Bulls.

Buffalo beat Bowling Green 31-24 on Saturday afternoon at Broadview Stadium on Senior Day, in front of 5,988 fans on a sunny, 63-degree day. It was the Bulls' third straight win, and it moved them to 5-3 overall and 3-1 in the MAC. Bowling Green fell to 2-6 and 2-2 and has now lost two in a row.

Tied after every quarter but one

The game was dead even for 45 minutes. Each team scored one touchdown in each of the first three quarters, and the score was tied after each of them.

Buffalo struck first. On its second possession, the Bulls went 67 yards in eight plays, and Burch finished it with an 11-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 lead.

Bowling Green answered with the kind of drive that defined its day. The Falcons went 71 yards in 13 plays and burned 7:56 off the clock before Jay Kastantin found Isaiah Dawson for an 18-yard touchdown with 1:01 left in the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Kastantin hit Trey Johnson for a 40-yard score to cap a nine-play, 75-yard drive, and Bowling Green led 14-7. The Falcons held that lead until late in the half.

The two-minute drill

Buffalo has made a habit of scoring before halftime this season, and it did it again. Quarterback Jason Wright kept the drive alive with a 39-yard run, and then found tight end Clint Walker for a 14-yard touchdown with 29 seconds left in the second quarter. The eight-play, 63-yard march took just 1:26 and sent the teams to the locker room tied at 14.

Bowling Green came out of the break and went right back in front. A short field helped: the Falcons needed only four plays to cover 30 yards, and Kastantin's third touchdown pass of the day, a 13-yarder to Nakai Amachree, made it 21-14 with 10:13 left in the third quarter.

Buffalo needed just six plays to answer. The Bulls went 75 yards, and Burch scored from 2 yards out with 8:11 left in the quarter to tie it again at 21.

The turning point

Buffalo's next scoring drive started late in the third quarter, a 13-play, 50-yard grind that ate 5:58, and Oliver Hautanen, the MAC's Special Teams Player of the Week the week before, drilled a 31-yard field goal with 14:55 left. That gave the Bulls a 24-21 lead, their first since early in the game.

The next Buffalo drive lasted one play. Burch broke loose for a 73-yard touchdown run with 12:18 to go, and the Bulls led 31-21.

Bowling Green did not go away. Travis Kenner's 26-yard field goal capped a nine-play, 63-yard drive and cut the lead to 31-24 with 3:36 to play. The Falcons got one more chance in the final minute, needing a touchdown to tie or win. After a completion, Buffalo linebacker Bradley Ilunga-Bisselele tackled the receiver in bounds, and the clock ran out.

Burch's big day

Burch finished with 184 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 33 carries. Both the yards and the carries were career highs, and he averaged 5.6 yards per attempt. His previous career high was 172 yards, which he set the week before against UMass.

It was his fifth straight 100-yard rushing game. According to Buffalo, he is the first Bulls running back since All-American Jaret Patterson in 2019 to put together a streak that long. It was also the first multi-touchdown game of his career, according to BG Falcon Media.

Burch, a 5-foot-9, 195-pound senior from Staten Island, carried the ball just 11 times last season, according to BG Falcon Media, which also credited him with learning from former Bulls running back Al-Jay Henderson, now on the New York Jets practice squad. Burch now leads the MAC in rushing at 106 yards per game.

On Monday, the MAC named him its Co-Offensive Player of the Week. He shared the honor with Kent State quarterback Dru DeShields.

The quarterbacks

Wright did not need to do much through the air. He completed 13 of 21 passes for 127 yards and the touchdown to Walker, with no interceptions, and his 39-yard run set up the tying score before halftime. Walker caught two passes for 40 yards. Chance Morrow had four receptions and Jaylen Andrews added three.

Kastantin was busier and, for long stretches, very good. He completed 19 of 27 passes for 217 yards and three touchdowns, spreading the scores among three receivers, and he ran 14 times for 34 yards. But he also threw two interceptions, and one came in the fourth quarter with the Falcons trailing by 10. Amachree was a threat as both a runner and a receiver, with 32 rushing yards on seven carries plus three catches for 20 yards and the touchdown. Johnson's lone catch was the 40-yard score.

The defense that bent

Buffalo's defense spent a lot of time on the field. Bowling Green held the ball for 35:45 to Buffalo's 24:15 and ran several long drives. But the Bulls came up with the two takeaways that the Falcons could not afford.

Miles Greer led all players with nine tackles and picked off his first pass as a Bull. Defensive end Sedrick Vessah also intercepted his first pass. SaVeon Brown added eight tackles and a tackle for loss, and Will Clark had a career-high 1.5 sacks.

The numbers that mattered

Buffalo outgained Bowling Green 378-341, and the difference was all on the ground. The Bulls ran for 251 yards, their season high against an FBS opponent, according to BG Falcon Media, while the Falcons managed 124. Bowling Green had come in allowing 209.6 rushing yards per game. Through the air, the Falcons held a 217-127 edge.

Buffalo had 19 first downs to Bowling Green's 17, and both teams converted 8 of 15 third downs. One number stood out: Buffalo was not charged with a single penalty yard, while Bowling Green had 17.

In a game this tight, the penalty-free afternoon and the two interceptions were the margin. The full drive chart is in the official box score (opens in a new tab), and Buffalo posted its recap (opens in a new tab) of the win, while Bowling Green posted its own recap (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Buffalo, three straight wins and a 3-1 conference record put the Bulls firmly in the MAC race heading into November. After 10 days off, Buffalo plays at Miami (OH) on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 8 p.m., a matchup of two teams that are 5-3 overall and 3-1 in the league.

For Bowling Green, this was a game that got away. The Falcons won the time of possession battle by more than 11 minutes, threw for three touchdowns and were tied entering the fourth quarter, yet they left their longest MAC road trip of the season with a loss. That left them at 2-6, and the road did not get easier. Next on the schedule was a trip to Western Michigan, another 5-3 team at 3-1 in the MAC, on Saturday, Oct. 31, with a two-game skid to end.

The last word

Bowling Green had the ball for most of the afternoon, and that is usually a recipe for winning a close game. Buffalo had Burch, and that turned out to be the better recipe.

One snap, 73 yards and 12 seconds of game clock undid the Falcons' patient work. A running back who touched the ball 11 times a year ago is now the best rusher in the MAC, and Buffalo is three wins into a run that keeps it squarely in the conference race.

Sources: University at Buffalo Athletics recap, official box score and MAC honors release, Bowling Green State University Athletics recap via BVM Sports, The Associated Press via ABC News and FOX Sports, BG Falcon Media and theScore. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Paul Hokanson / UB Athletics.