BOWLING GREEN — Signing day for the class of 2020 came and went two months ago, but Bowling Green had one final exclamation point for what already was a well-regarded class.
Quarterback Kody Sparks, a 6-foot-4 pro-style quarterback, committed to the Falcons, bolstering BG's once-thin quarterback ranks.
Sparks' commitment comes late in the recruiting cycle, but he said that his relationship with Bowling Green head coach Scot Loeffler and quarterbacks coach Max Warner ended up making the difference in his choice.
"Honestly, it was just the relationship that I have with the coaches, and with Coach Warner and Coach Loeffler especially," he said. "Coach Warner was texting me and calling me almost every day, and we just built a really good relationship that didn't even have a whole lot to do with football."
Originally from Fishers, Ind., Sparks moved to Murfreesboro, Tenn. and completed his senior season at Oakland High School.
Among Bowl Subdivision teams, Sparks held an offer from Kent State and was listed as a two-star prospect by 247Sports.
He will start as a walk-on for his first semester at Bowling Green, but the Falcons plan to make him a scholarship player at some point in 2021.
Sparks becomes the third quarterback to become part of Bowling Green's class of 2020, joining Tucker Melton and Riley Keller, both three-star prospects.
Melton, a native of Phenix City, Ala., is already enrolled at Bowling Green and was going through spring practice with the Falcons before athletic activities stopped. Keller, from Whitmer High School, signed in December and will be able to join the team for offseason workouts if the season goes forward as planned.
Despite the influx of quarterbacks, Sparks said he welcomes the competition because teams often benefit from it long-term.
"At the end of the day, if I don't play and say, Riley plays instead of me, every day during practice I'm going to do my job to make him better. If Tucker plays over me, same thing with him," Sparks said. "It's just that mentality where competition makes everybody better, whether you're the starter, the backup, or you're last on the depth chart."
Redshirt junior Matt McDonald was the only scholarship quarterback in the program at one point during the offseason, but the three freshmen provide a complete overhaul of the quarterback depth chart in one recruiting cycle.
Bowling Green’s quarterback development will be on display immediately when football activities resume. Though McDonald almost certainly will start, his backup will come from the group of three freshman.
Though Sparks and Bowling Green became connected late in the process, Sparks said the fit with Loeffler — who rose through the coaching ranks for his works with quarterbacks — was the right one.
“I think the fit with him is perfect and everything I could ask for,” he said.
Sparks had to wait longer than most of his classmates to commit, but he said he doesn’t give much thought to recruiting rankings and believes this timeline happened for a reason.
"I don't really care about all the hype, I don't care about how many followers I have on Instagram or Twitter or anything," Sparks said. "At the end of the day, I know that God's going to put me in the best place and it's my job to get there, compete, and do what I'm supposed to do."
First Published April 10, 2020, 12:22 a.m.
