We'll need to pound the ball this week. In conference games, Buffalo leads the MAC in pass D (169 yds/game) but is dead last in rushing D (284). Their rushing D stat plus the fact they have only 6 sacks in four MAC games (4-way tie for 9th in the MAC) says their front seven isn't that good.
Their O line is better (4 sacks in four games) and they have a balanced offense: 145 rushes/148 passes; 195 rushing/226 passing ypg. Given that our rushing D is 2nd best in the MAC and our passing D is 9th, we can expect them to come out passing to try and open up the running game. Our secondary needs to come up big on this one.
The big stat in our favor is the scoreboard. We're about even in pts scored, but we've only given up 18.8 pg while they're doing 34.8 (and that's considering the 20 they gave up to Akron).
Those stats are incredibly misleading. The UB defense is actually pretty stout against the run and I would even argue that the front 7 are one of the biggest strengths on either side of the ball for the Bulls. They plug the gut pretty well, though they are susceptible to runs on the edges because of a lack of speed and the secondary sometimes struggling to tackle in space. That said, if you want to truly understand why the stats are so bad for the defense you need to look at the offense.
This UB offense might be the worst we've ever had in our 17 years in FBS. Tyree Jackson is HUGE, mobile, athletic, and incredibly inaccurate. He makes freshman mistakes, stares down receivers, but it isn't all his fault since he typically has only about 2 seconds to make a decision with our swiss cheese OLine allowing every FCS+ level pass rusher dominate them. The playcalling has also been suspect and it seems like our OC is more focused on maintaining a rush/pass 50/50 balance instead of trying to utilize any favorable mismatches. It's been hard to watch. I don't have access to this stat but I would imagine UB's offense leads the nation in 3 and outs this year. They struggle to move the ball early in games, fall behind, then throw a bunch of incompletions trying to catch up. Our defense never gets off the field. Akron was the first game where our OC actually stuck to running the ball since we were getting a push up front for the first time all season (Akron's DLine is truly horrible). Once our offense finally strung together some drives in that game it gave our defense a chance to catch their breath and they ended up shutting down Akron's 33 PPG offense. Bowden said after the game "If we don’t get a punt return, I don’t think we score a touchdown".
I think this game is a horrible mismatch for Buffalo since we can't throw the ball and your DLine will manhandle our rushing attack. That said, our defense may surprise you.