The Bowling Green football team scored a touchdown with just seconds left to play to get a win over the Purdue Boilermakers this past weekend.
With the game tied 28-28, the Falcons faced a first and 10 on the Purdue 12-yard line. With Matt Johnson powering the Bowling Green offense through the air for a majority of the season, many expected the ball to go to him for a decision.
Head coach Dino Babers had a different plan in mind.
Senior running back Travis Greene is one of the best at the position that the Falcons have ever had. Greene had 26 touchdowns in his past two years on the team and had one so far this season coming in against Purdue.
Greene had scored the first touchdown earlier in the game from the Purdue 11, rushing to the end zone past two defenders to give the Falcons their first lead of the game.
Babers trusted that play again to end the contest.
“Everybody in the stadium says you are going to throw it,” he said. “If you run it and it doesn’t work, I have to stand in front of you guys and say I am a dumb-dumb. It did work, so I get to smile. I thought it was going to work.”
Greene made the Purdue defense look bad. After a handoff from Johnson, Greene juked a defender to get to a hole in the line and then broke three Boilermaker tackles to score and give the Falcons the final lead with 9 seconds left on the clock.
“It’s big for our program,” Greene said. “We always knew that we had the ability and skill to knock out some of these big teams. Now, we’re proving that with these last two games.”
Missed field goals and penalty calls from Purdues side made the game a bit easier for the Falcons.
“The good thing about that call was that we were running the clock down as well,” Johnson said. “Even if Travis did not get into the end zone, we were going to be able to kick the field goal for the win.”
With two wins against Big Ten teams, the Falcons will now look forward to Mid-American Conference play.
The team looks good to position themselves in a spot to compete for a conference title.
The Falcons’ rival on I-75, Toledo Rockets, are favorites to win this year with an undefeated record so far this season.
Bowling Green will start their conference play against Buffalo this Saturday in Buffalo.
