Entering tonight Bowling Green was faced with a similar situation that they were in just a year ago.
That being with six wins on the year heading into the final regular season game with a chance to achieve something that hasn’t happened at Bowling Green in eight years.
Last year, the team achieved bowl eligibility the week prior in an historic win against Toledo, and went into Athens to face Ohio to close the regular season.
But ultimately? They looked dead, lousy, and basically laid an egg.
They then went into the bowl game against New Mexico State in Detroit and put up a good fight until the end, but ended with a loss, leaving them with a 6-7 record and below .500 on the year.
This year however, a similar situation has occurred; bowl eligibility was achieved two weeks ago and the team walked into Kalamazoo wanting one thing – a winning record on the year, and on Tuesday, they made sure they weren’t going to repeat last year.
Bowling Green pummeled Western Michigan 34-10 to achieve what hasn’t been done for the Falcons in eight years
And if you were to tell Scot Loeffler and his squad in early October that they would have a winning record come Thanksgiving, they would have said that you were crazy.
The Falcons had one of the toughest starts in the conference and it showed. They started out 2-4 with two big in conference losses to Miami OH and Ohio. Games that weren’t particularly close at all.
Senior wide receiver Odieu Hiliare said that the team wasn’t fazed when battling that adversity at 2-4 and said why can’t we finish at 8-4? Which they were ultimately one point off from achieving.
“When we were at 2-4 we told ourselves we could just finish at 8-4. Just turning things around and take things one week at a time and one day at a time. Every practice try to execute, try to finish that practice. One day at a time, one week at a time, one game at a time.”
Loeffler couldn’t agree more as he knew somehow someway they would bounce back after such a brutal start to the season.
“We achieved it with a very tough beginning. You go back to the OU game and the University of Michigan beat the hell out of us and we couldn’t even practice until the very end of the week. So we dealt with some adversity at the beginning and got better as the year went on. We’ve got great coaches, great kids and we need to keep everyone here and keep our program together,” said Loeffler after the game.
Last year as mentioned they didn’t close out their final two games the way they had liked and for this year they already have accomplished 50% of finishing the year strong.
“We’ve got a lot of good young players and we need to keep everyone together and everyone here and if so we have a really good chance to move the needle again. I really like our guys, I like how they work and how they like each other, no off-the-field problems. Keep being who we are, take the next step and good things are gonna happen”
A big help in the previous month and a half’s success can come at the helm of the defense who added on two more interceptions to their nation-leading stat of takeaways tonight.
And when that defense is buzzing, it’s the best feeling in the world according to cornerback Jordan Oladokun.
“It’s the best feeling in the world, for me personally this is the most fun I’ve had playing defense. We all work for each other and all give each other a chance to make plays and see what we can do.”
Oladokun came up huge for this defense at the start of the second quarter as he not only snagged his fourth interception of the year but added on the second pick-six for the Falcon’s defense as he took it 53 yards to the house to extend the lead to 17 to which they never looked back.
Loeffler took this job five years ago and inherited a bad football team and now when he looks back at those dark days, he realizes just how far he’s taken this program.
“We don’t have too many seniors, but those guys when you look at Darren for example I mean my goodness gracious he was in the dark ages and the stories we’ve had are priceless in how we’ve had to rebuild this thing and we’ve come a long way”
This bowl game will be a great opportunity for these Falcons that I know they’re just eager to get out and play but this long break, gives the team time to heal up and get to 100% so they can give whoever their opponent is the best possible game they can give.
All on Loeffler’s mind between now and the bowl game?
Finish.
“This bowl game is going to be a really important deal for us. Last year we didn’t finish and this year we want to finish”
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