The Bowling Green football team held its last scrimmage of their preseason on Saturday before preparing for Ohio State next weekend.

Head Coach Michael Jinks made the decision to only play his younger players in the scrimmage, sitting all of his starters and second team athletes.

The decision comes on the heels of losing all-conference left tackle Jacob Bennett, who is expected to miss early games this season due to a knee injury. 

Bennett started all 14 games last season and has 42 starts in his career, second only to right guard Alex Huettel.

“When you’ve won two of the last three MAC championships, there’s something to be said about getting them to the bus. If my players are better than yours and they’re healthy I’m going to win football games,” Jinks said. “What you don’t want to do in the last scrimmage of the year is lose a guy. Unfortunately, in my 22 years as a coach, I’ve done that. I’ve sworn not to make the same mistake again.”

With starters and the secondary rested, the younger talent was given the chance to show some spark. This allowed Jinks to evaluate and plan for the future of Falcon football.

“It was a great opportunity to get a lot of the young kids out there and get some quality reps,” Jinks said. “It was not as clean as I would have liked, but overall I thought the operation was pretty good.”

One standout of the group was freshman quarterback Elijah Cunningham. Cunningham showed promise in the pocket, finishing his first drive with a lengthy touchdown reception to freshman receiver Jared Wyatt.

“He hasn’t gotten a ton of reps, but he seems to have a grasp of what we are trying to do. He held the ball a little long for my taste, but he got us in and out of plays well,” Jinks said. “In his last series I allowed him to check whenever he wanted and he seems to have a good idea of what we want to do.”

With not much time left until the season opener, there is still work that needs to be done from a coaching and management stand point. The Falcons will still need to solidify their receiving core with the star power lost in the last year and come up with a defensive plan to compete with the high scoring offense in Ohio State.

With running back Matt Domer also dealing with injuries, the running back group will also need to have another player besides Fred Coppet step up. 

However, with three starters and an experienced back up returning to the offensive line, Coppet’s job will be a bit easier.

The Falcons travel to the Horseshoe in Columbus on Sept. 3 to take on the Buckeyes.