Everyone knows how exciting this weekend is going to be. For the first time in its history, Doyt L. Perry Stadium will host a nationally televised game.

ESPN GameDay will be on campus, broadcasting live tomorrow morning.

Our football team will be engaged in perhaps its most important game ever.

Certainly, there is reason for celebration, reason to smile, reason to get wild and have fun.

A win over Northern Illinois would be huge in both the standings of the Mid-American Conference and also in improving BG’s bowl chances.

Everyone should enjoy the weekend.

But there is a limit.

Most of us know where the limit lies. While sometimes the difference between fun and recklessness can be surprisingly thin, we owe it to our school, our families, and most of all, ourselves, to respect that difference.

Everyone should be able to embrace this incredible weekend, and everyone has the right to enjoy it as much as possible.

But doing something to endanger yourself and others should not be part of that equation.

Incidents in Toledo and Nebraska should act as reminders to all of us that there can be harm, in some cases life-altering harm, in taking fun at a football game too far.

Our football coach and the administrators on this campus encourage a boisterous and atmosphere for the game tomorrow. But encouraging enthusiasm is not the same as asking fans to go beyond it.

The fact is that no one wants to see someone get hurt, and no one wants to be a detriment to the football team rather than an advantage.

Gregg Brandon said earlier this week that the fans can have a great influence on the game by being loud and intimidating. So when we head out to the stadium tomorrow, we should be ready to support BG in any way possible.

But we should also be safe.

We should make it as difficult as possible for Northern Illinois to hear when they enter the field.

That’s what Northern Illinois fans did to BG players last season. As fans, we can have a major impact on tomorrow’s game.

Let’s just make sure it’s the right type of impact.

Let’s make ESPN and the rest of the country wonder why it has taken so long to come to Bowling Green.

Let’s make sure that the rest of the country sees that BG is a great place for football.