BOWLING GREEN — Darius Wade had barely set his bags down in Bowling Green before he found himself squarely in the center of the Falcons’ football season.
When practice opened Wednesday morning, Wade was taking first-team snaps along with Grant Loy and fellow transfer Matt McDonald, whose eligibility this season is pending with the NCAA.
For now, the Falcons are taking a long look at all three players, including the program’s newest arrival among the quarterback competitors.
Wade, whom Bowling Green declined to make available for an interview Wednesday, is a sixth-year graduate transfer who played under current BG coach Scot Loeffler while both were at Boston College.
Though Wade just arrived on campus, Loeffler said the upcoming transition is “not as difficult as what you would expect.”
Wade spent four years at Boston College, including two while Loeffler was the offensive coordinator, and Loeffler said Wade already knows the offense BG is running.
“He did a great job on Day 1,” Loeffler said. “The biggest thing with him is getting the timing. He hasn’t been here all summer long throwing with these wide receivers, so he knows what to do but he doesn’t know the personnel and where he needs to throw the ball and everyone’s speed.”
Loy, a redshirt junior, is the longest tenured quarterback at Bowling Green, though Wade has the most game experience of the three quarterbacks.
The left-hander played in 22 games during parts of four seasons at Boston College, where he completed 55.6 percent of his passes, threw for five touchdowns, five interceptions, and accounted for 1,091 yards.
He spent the 2018 season at Delaware but did not appear in a game, then was granted a sixth year by the NCAA.
While Wade is new to Bowling Green, he is not new to Loeffler’s offense. Falcons quarterbacks coach Max Warner said Wade is mostly re-acclimating to what he already knows, as much of the terminology is the same.
“Everything he’s hearing, it’s not like he’s hearing it for the first time,” Warner said. “It’s not like a freshman who just walked in the door and didn’t have that experience.”
The next domino to fall in Bowling Green’s quarterback competition will be the decision on McDonald’s eligibility waiver. If the NCAA grants immediate eligibility to McDonald, Bowling Green would have three scholarship quarterbacks from which to choose. If not, Wade and Loy are the Falcons’ two options ahead of the season opener.
Until then, Bowling Green plans to evaluate all three passers equally in an earnest competition to be the starter.
“What we’re going to do is let all 3 of those guys compete like hell against each other, and we’re going to make the rotation different every day,” Loeffler said. “We’re going to move those reps around as much as we can, and keep them even, obviously, but move them around.”
First Published July 31, 2019, 9:31 p.m.
